LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. Copyright No.. 

■ JJ 8 <U 

Shelf. JL 

377 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



SUNSHINE TRIP 



I 



A Sunshine Trip 



GLIMPSES OF THE ORIENT 



^Extract* from betters 



WRITTEN BS 



MARGARET BOTTOME 



EDWARD ARNOLD ^ ^ ~* ' 

NEW YORK LONDON 
70 Fifth Avenue 37 Bedford Street 

1897 



Copyright, 1897, 
By Edward Arnold. 



SEntbersttg Press: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



TO 

MRS. NORMAN L. MUNRO, 

WHO MADE "THE SUNSHINE TRIP " A POSSIBILITY, 

GBjfe Utttle Uoiume 

IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



Contents 



Page 

Introduction ix 

On the Ocean i 

Madeira 4 

The Rock of Gibraltar 7 

Algiers 1 1 

Villefranche, Monte Carlo, etc 16 

Tunis 24 

Malta . . . 32 

"'Way down in Egypt Land" 39 

Cairo 44 

On a Sand-bank 50 

Our Dragoman 53 

Farewell to the Ruins of Egypt 65 

The Scarab ees 79 

My Mohammedan Daughter 87 

Cairo after our Return from the Nile . . 95 

Mosques 99 

Leaving Cairo for Palestine 102 

The Holy Land 106 

vii 



Contents 



Page 

Bethany 121 

The Mount of Olives .125 

Gethsemane 134 

Bethlehem 137 

The Mosque of Omar 142 

What I missed 145 

Something else I missed 154 

A Pleasant Morning in Jaffa 158 

Naples 165 

Pompeii 17 1 

Rome 177 

The Colosseum 189 

Venice 193 

Milan to Paris 203 

England — then Home 211 



viii 



INTRODUCTION. 



Life is too short to permit one to refuse 
to do anything in one's power to give 
pleasure to others. Acting on this principle, 
I consent to let this very imperfect account 
of my trip to the East go to those who in- 
sist on having it. I have been waiting for 
the time to come when I should have leisure 
to write more at length ; but alas ! that time 
has not yet arrived. The best I can do is 
to give these extracts of letters I sent from 
the East, imperfect as they are. If in this 
way I can give pleasure to any one, I shall 
feel amply repaid. 

m. b; 



A Sunshine Trip 



ON THE OCEAN 

BLUE skies, smooth seas ; all the 
glories of sunrising and sunsetting ; 
the Atlantic Ocean so beautiful that it 
seems no longer the "unpastured sea 
hungry for calm ! " It appears as if it 
had entered into rest. 

These days and nights we are spending 
on the <c Fuerst Bismarck " ; the new 
friends we are making ; the beautiful 
sights we see on this ocean, day after 
day ! Really, it does seem to me that 
never till all earth's beauties disappear, 
and we come in sight of the New Jerusa- 
lem, and sit down together by the side 
of " the pure river of water of life," shall 
i i 



A Sunshine Trip 

we have anything so perfect as our voy- 
age to the lands that will be new to most 
of us. 

It has been the dream of my friend's 
life to see the Holy Land. I am sure 
I never dreamed I should see it ; but 
my friend's dream has made it possible 
for me. What a happy party we are ! 
Since the morning of January 28 (the 
most beautiful winter day I ever saw) we 
have had the same blue skies and smooth 
seas ; and, if this continues, I think our 
trip could most appropriately be called a 
" Sunshine Trip." 

I need not describe ship life to you 
who know it ; and yet this is so different 
from the ordinary voyage across the At- 
lantic ! It is a Southern trip in more 
ways than one. Acquaintanceship soon 
ripens into friendship, for you must re- 
member that we are living together for a 



On the Ocean 

long time. When we go into the din- 
ing-room we look on the right for our St. 
Louis friends as if they were our guests 
or we were theirs. 

Of course it is always Egypt and the 
Holy Land with us ; and yet we enjoy 
everything on the way. I mean, as best 
I can, to let you know at least a little of 
each place at which we shall stop on our 
way to Alexandria, and if you get only 
a few lines from a place you have never 
visited, it may be of interest to you. 

I am delighted that we are to stop at 
so many places that will be new to me. 
I think we are all prepared to act on the 
suggestion of Archbishop Trench, — 

" Wise it were to welcome whate'er of joy, though 
small, the present brings : 
Kind greetings, sunshine, songs of birds and flowers, 
with a child's pure delight in little things. 
And of the unborn future rest secure, 
Knowing that mercy ever will endure." 

3 



MADEIRA 



ALL here is new to us, — new people, 
a new mode of travelling, and a 
climate that almost makes you feel you 
have reached the land where everlasting 
spring abides. We are told the island 
was discovered by an eloping couple, 
who, fleeing from Portugal to France on 
a small vessel which was blown hither 
by adverse winds, were left by the crew 
of the craft. They lived and died here, 
and the oldest church in the place is built 
over their graves. 

It seems to me that the spirit of love 
still broods over the place. I shall 
always remember it as the place where 
white roses were thrown into the window 
while we were ascending the hill in a 
little open railway-car, with the tropical 
4 



Madeira 



gardens on either side of us. The 
flowers which are considered rare by us 
are the common flowers here. For a 
moment I caught a sight of what I imag- 
ine Paradise will be. It almost seemed 
as if the "loved .of long ago" would 
come to meet us with white flowers. 
And in the little church on the top of 
the mountains, called " Our Lady of the 
Mountains/' so profusely decorated with 
the beautiful japonicas, it seemed as if 
all church distinctions vanished, and we 
all felt like kneeling and returning thanks 
for the beautiful voyage we had had over 
such a lovely sea. 

In that little church I saw a sight 
strange to me. On the wall I noticed 
a leg made of plaster; a little distance 
from that, a hand ; and, not far oflf, a 
foot. Not long after, while talking to 

Father McL (whom we all en- 

5 



A Sunshine Trip 

joyed so much on the " Bismarck "), 
I asked him what it signified. He had 
not noticed it, but he said, " Undoubtedly 
some one has suffered much, and perhaps 
has had a limb amputated, and, his life 
being spared, to commemorate the mercy, 
has had a plaster cast made of the limb 
and hung it in the chapeL ,, "Well," 
I said, " I am glad you told me. There 
are many people who ought to remem- 
ber the great mercies of their lives and 
yet have n't had so much gratitude as 
these poor people/' The word was 
not slow in coming to my mind, " I 
beseech you, by the mercies of God, that 
ye present your bodies a living sacri- 
fice." The feet that have been spared, 
the hands that are still ours, — shall we 
not dedicate these living feet and arms 
to the service of the One who made them 
and has preserved them for us? 

6 



THE ROCK OF GIBRALTAR 



HERE I am at Gibraltar ! This rock 
has had a peculiar fascination for 
me from childhood, though I never ex- 
pected to see it. How often I had 
heard my mother say, " You could not 
move her any more than you could move 
the Rock of Gibraltar/' You will re- 
member that the rock was known to 
the Phoenicians as one of the Pillars of 
Hercules, the point on the opposite 
African coast being the other pillar. 
West of these pillars, which were named 
for the deity, and not the hero, the 
ancients supposed there existed nothing 
but darkness and chaos. 

I stood and looked off on the two con- 
7 



A Sunshine 'Trip 

tinents, and had one of my usual reflec- 
tions. How little those ancients dreamed 
of the beyond ! They thought they had 
it all. How little did they dream of the 
Western world ! Standing on a spot 
where the African coast was so near, I 
thought of the great Beyond, not bounded 
by our North and South, and East and 
West. I left the spot, murmuring the 
lines of Whittier's, — 

" I better know than all 
How little I have gained, 
How vast the unattained." 

It was interesting to go through the 
galleries which honeycomb the rock ; and 
looking through the little openings out 
on the beautiful sea makes you think 
of the pleasant things that come to you 
while passing a rocky way in life, where 
you get for a moment a view that tells 
you it will not always be a rock. I need 
8 



The Rock of Gibraltar 

hardly tell you that I saw a lesson in the 
fact that a variety of plants and trees and 
shrubs flourish among the stony ledges 
and crevices. 

Around the point we saw the summer 
residence of the Governor. Beyond that 
an inaccessible cliff rises in a perpendicu- 
lar wall of rock from the sea. For the 
first time I stood on Spanish soil and saw 
the contrast between a British and a 
Spanish town, and I could not but feel as 
if I would like to have England own 
everything on the footstool, excepting, of 
course, the United States. Say what we 
may about the British Lion putting its 
paw on everything, I notice that where 
that paw is, there is civilisation. 

We were in Spain for a few moments 
only (and were glad hurriedly to leave), and 
saw only the wretched little town of Lima, 
where the bull fights are given on Sun- 
9 



A Sunshine Trip 

days and fete days. The utter wretched- 
ness of the place, the extreme poverty 
and filth, made us say, " Take us back to 
British possessions." The Spanish may 
dream that the rock is only temporarily 
under the British flag ; but no one who 
steps on Spanish soil, it seems to me, and 
then goes back to where the British flag 
floats, will fail to say, " Long may it 
wave." 



IO 



ALGIERS 



IN 1830 the French took possession of 
this city, and have held it ever since. 
It was intended, I have heard, that Algiers 
should be restored to the sovereignty of 
the Sultan of Turkey, but Louis Philippe 
decided to retain the conquest. I am 
glad that the Sultan does not own it. I 
seem now to see the dazzling white houses 
as they looked to me, with the early sun- 
light on them, that beautiful morning 
when we came in sight of them. The 
houses rise from the water front with such 
regularity and in such a mass of greenery 
that I do not wonder the natives say 
Algiers is a diamond enclosed in an em- 
erald. Here we first caught sight of what, 



A Sunshine 'Trip 

we are told, we shall see along the entire 
coast. The Arabs bring their Oriental 
goods to the steamer, and on the morning 
I speak of, our deck was transformed into 
a fascinating shop. All kinds of curious 
things are offered for sale, not only Egyp- 
tian, but Moorish ; and the prices are 
not unreasonable. We were told to wait 
till we reached Cairo before making pur- 
chases. We spent Sunday here. Of 
course we wanted to go to service, so we 
took a carriage, asking to be driven to the 
English Church ; but the driver stopped 
at the mosque " El Tebir," built in the 
tenth century, and a fine example of 
Moorish architecture. Our courier said 
we had plenty of time to see this mosque : 
so here we had our first experience in put- 
ting on the usual slippers, for we could 
enter the mosque only with sandalled feet. 
We shall not get so many opportunities 

12 



Algiers 

of going to church on this trip that we 
shall be apt to forget the sermon in that 
English Church, or the service that never 
seemed sweeter, or the hymn that was 
more to me than all I had heard since leav- 
ing New York, — "I could not do with- 
out Thee." How often Mrs. M and 

I have repeated the words, " I could not 
do without Thee " ! So just now, instead 
of telling you of more of the outward, 
let me repeat, as the beautiful Algiers is 
fading from our sight, the words of the 
hymn, sweeter than ever before, sung in 
that little English Church : — 

** I could not do without Thee, — 
No other friend can read 
The spirit's strange, deep longings, 
Interpreting its need. 

No human heart could enter 

Each dim recess of mine, 
And soothe and hush and calm it, 

O Blessed Lord, but Thine." 

13 



A Sunshine Trip 

Ah, me ! I wish that the poor Moham- 
medans that we saw prostrate themselves 
in their mosque that Sunday morning 
only knew the true Prophet and King, — 
our Lord Jesus Christ. 

How shall I describe that lovely Sun- 
day afternoon after our dinner at the 
hotel ? As we walked through the avenues, 
with their hedges of cactus and roses on 
every side, everything seemed so strangely 
beautiful. At last I saw palm trees large 
enough to satisfy me. I smiled at rubber 
trees huge as maples or oaks, and thought 
of the little miniature rubber tree I had 
left behind me at home ; and I said to 
myself, when I see it again I will tell it of 
its grand relations in Africa ; for it is a 
comfort to know you are respectably con- 
nected, though you may never see your 
rich relatives. Algiers will always have a 
fascination for me. 

14 



Algiers 

On Monday afternoon we were all 
on board our steamer and were sailing 
for the South of France. How home- 
like the steamer has become to us ; how 
pleasant the greetings with one another, 
after a day on shore, — the telling each 
other of our impressions and showing 
purchases made ; all so companionable 
that it is no wonder the very name of the 
" Fuerst Bismarck " will ever have a pleas- 
ant sound for all of us ! 



15 



VILLEFRANCHE, MONTE CARLO, 
ETC. 



WE arrived at Nice on the morning 
of the twelfth of February. The 
fairy scene continued, the weather being 
perfect. As we stood at the station wait- 
ing for our train, we saw an empty railway 
carriage, and, thinking it was our train, 
we hastened to fill the empty seats. When 
all were nicely seated, up came our guide 
and said, " Will you please get out." Of 
course, there was nothing to do but get 
out ; and then he said in his imperfect 
English, "Please see that I am in front of 
you, and not behind, in the future." I 
need not tell you I thought of the times 
when I had gone ahead of my Guide. 
16 



Villefranche, Monte Carlo, etc. 
The familiar lines came back, — 

"I would be treated as a child 
And guided where I go." 

" Follow your guide." If that train had 
moved, we should have gone exactly the 
way we did not want to go, — the wrong 
way. Alas for the many who have taken 
the wrong train in life ! 

Our visit at Nice was most agreeable. 
The climate, as elsewhere, is absolutely 
perfect. But the object of painful interest 
was Monte Carlo, famous for its great 
gambling establishment. Our visit to 
Monte Carlo was in the evening. In 
order to obtain entrance to the gambling- 
rooms all are required to give their names 
and addresses. It was the first and last 
time my name will stand as a visitor to 
the gambling hell at Monte Carlo or any 
other such place. The grounds are en- 
17 



A Sunshine "Trip 

trancing. They are filled with immense 
varieties of trees and shrubbery, and at 
last I saw every variety of the palm family 
of which I am so fond. Ascending the mar- 
ble terraces, you get a magnificent view ; 
and the music to which you listen, as you 
make your way to the entrance, completes 
the allurement. What an evening ! I had 
never seen a gambling-table before. I 
passed from one table to another and 
looked at the players, too intent on the 
game to notice us. All was still, — the 
only noise, the shovelling of the gold. I 
saw lovely looking women, old and young, 
at the tables ; no excitement apparently. 
The excited ones were those who were 
looking on, many of them debating wh ether 
or not to risk a little, just to try it. 
I saw young girls drawn into this vortex 
for the first time, and you could see the 
colour come and go in their cheeks. But 
18 



Villefranche, Monte Carlo, etc. 

those at the table seemed to be beyond 
that. At eleven o'clock all must leave. 

We lingered till near that time in the 
gardens, standing among the beautiful 
shrubbery, enjoying the air, so pure and 
fresh after that of the close, brilliantly 
lighted rooms. While standing thus, 
there came from the gambling-rooms a 
well-dressed lady, who quickly passed by 
us into the dense shrubbery. In an in- 
stant there came to our ears a cry of despair 
which none who heard will ever forget. 
She threw herself on the ground, and 
again and again we heard the heart-rend- 
ing cry. A man emerged from under 
some trees and lifted her up ; but she 
extricated herself from his grasp and again 
threw herself on the ground with that 
shriek of despair. In a few minutes all 
was still. She had gone or was carried 
away, whither no one knew. It confirmed 
*9 



A Sunshine Trip 

all I had heard of Monte Carlo, — a para- 
dise with a serpent in it. The woman had 
evidently lost all. 

The next day we drove from Nice to 
Monte Carlo, over the famous drive of 
the world, — the Corniche Road. In a 
jeweller's shop at Monte Carlo we were 
shown a beautiful necklace of pearls that 
were for sale. They were left to pay some 
gambling debt, the jeweller said, and the 
owner, a lady, was waiting till the pearls 
were sold in order to get to her home. She 
had no money to get away. The old 
story, — a the pleasures of sin for a sea- 
son," and the season soon over. After the 
night when I heard that woman scream, I 
did not care to see the beauty of the place. 
We drove over to Monaco, the seat of the 
prince of that name. It is situated on a 
bold rocky promontory one mile from 
Monte Carlo. The prince derives his 
20 



Villefranche, Monte Carlo, etc. 

vast revenues from the great gambling 
establishment. 

At Nice we saw the famous Battle of 
the Flowers. This fete was new to me, 
although I had seen carriages as beauti- 
fully decorated at the Flower Festival in 
the White Mountains. We had front seats 
on the grand stand before our hotel, where 
we could see it all. One of our party 
had provided herself with six hundred 
bouquets ; but four hundred more were 
needed before the battle was over. The 
carriages contained huge baskets filled 
with flowers ; bouquets were thrown to 
the spectators ; and, as quick as a flash, the 
compliment was returned. I could not 
help thinking how much lovelier it was to 
throw flowers than stones. Ah, we need 
more battles of flowers, even in our fami- 
lies ! Those who threw the most received 
the most; those who threw sparingly 

21 

S 



A Sunshine Trip 

received sparingly. I noticed that it was 
not always the most beautifully decorated 
carriages that were bombarded, or the 
most elegantly dressed women who had 
the best time, but rather those who gave 
the most. 

I am sorry I can say so little of what 
the truly religious or Christian people 
may be doing in this and that place ; but 
we passed so quickly from one point to 
another, simply getting a bird's-eye view 
of all, that I really had no time to make 
any extended investigation. I had to be 
content with the loving souls with whom 
I found myself face to face as the days 
went by. We saw only enough to make 
us hungry to see more ; maybe life itself 
is only to create hunger for the more 
beautiful beyond. I once met a lovely 
woman who said life was only just long 
enough for you to make your selections, 

22 



Villefranche, Monte Carlo, etc. 

and in the Great Beyond you would 
have time to cultivate what you selected 
here. So far as drives are concerned, I 
should select that drive in the most pict- 
uresque and beautiful portion of the 
Riviera. It winds along the coast, in 
and out among the bold promontories 
that jut out into the sea, promontories all 
covered with most luxuriant vegetation. 



23 



TUNIS 



WE are now back again on our 
steamer. The two days at Tunis 
were memorable days. In the morning, 
when we were ready to go on shore, there 
was a commotion in the companion- 
way, and we learned that our stewardess, 
who had greeted us, only a little while 
before, with her pleasant smile, had fallen 
and was being carried to the officer's 
room. She had said to one of the other 
maids, only a few moments before, cc My 
morning's work is nearly done ; I have 
only a few more ladies to wait on." How 
little she knew how nearly done it was ! 
The doctor said it was heart disease. 
In a short hour all was over. We stepped 
24 



Tunis 



into our row-boat. She was carried in 
another. Who could have foreseen, that 
morning when she served us in our state- 
room, what would happen in such a short 
time? All the stewards and employees 
on the boat raised a fund, not only for 
covering her grave with flowers, but for 
the erection of a stone to mark her rest- 
ing-place in the Protestant burial-ground, 
where is buried the one who wrote 
" Home, Sweet Home." 

Some time afterwards, on making in- 
quiries about her, I found that she was 
not at all well when she engaged for the 
voyage, and her friends had done all they 
could to get her to take a rest. But she 
was a widow with an only son, and her 
answer was, " The boy must be educated, 
and I must earn the money." In the 
pocket of her dress was found a letter 
from her boy, who was at school in 
25 



A Sunshine Trip 

Switzerland, I think. He asked his 
mother if she could spare him two shil- 
lings. A well-known man of our country 
started a subscription list, and enough 
money was subscribed to educate the boy. 
Oh, the unwritten histories ! I could only 
imagine that mother's anxiety for her 
fatherless boy, her own efforts, and all 
her patient toil till she fell. Then, in a 
way she had never dreamed of, her 
prayers were answered. Her boy would 
be educated. It seemed that the death 
of the mother would do more for the 
boy than her life could have done. In 
that hour the Fatherhood of God and 
the possible brotherhood of man seemed 
more within reach. 

I saw and had a conversation with the 
Lutheran minister who buried the " Smil- 
ing Stewardess " (as we called her), and 
he told me he was engaged in building 
26 



Tunis 

a little church, to be called " The Home, 
Sweet Home Church/' (I wish all the 
churches were real " Home, Sweet Home 
churches.") 

Here at Tunis, we saw the Palace of 
the Bey, and we went through the Harem. 
The Bey was absent with his wives. Of 
course, the chief attraction is a visit to 
the site of ancient Carthage. Hardly 
anything remains intact but the cisterns, 
still capable of holding water. The ruins 
are truly melancholy. It was our return 
to the steamer that marked the day. 
The sea had become rough, and there 
was difficulty ; the landing certainly looked 
dangerous to those standing on the steamer 
watching for the boats to come in. The 
distance was much greater from the 
steamer to the shore at Tunis than at 
any other place ! The waves ran so very 
high ! The boat in which I sat was the 
27 



A Sunshine Trip 

last of a number of boats, so the interest 

was intense. The only way for us to 

board the steamer was to step on the 

little platform, on which rested the ladder 

that ran down the side of the steamer, 

just as the wave lifted the boat to the 

platform. You had to be careful so as not 

to step before or after. There was just 

one moment in which it could be done. 

The officer had his hand extended, and if 

you took advantage at the right instant, all 

was well ; but if there was the slightest 

hesitation, there was only one way, and 

that was to drag you up, and I had seen 

more than one pulled up just as the wave 

was taking the boat back. As I rose in 

the boat, I heard a stranger say as I took 

up my wrap, " Leave all," so I threw the 

wrap down in the boat, and as the boat 

lifted, stepped on to the platform. After 

my return home I heard that I had 
28 



Tunis 

fainted and was dragged on the ship, but 
there was not the slightest truth in that. 
I never was calmer or less in danger of 
fainting, though it was an exceedingly 
trying moment ; but my friend, who 
watched it all from the deck of the steamer, 
suffered far more than I did, for, by 
chance, I was the only one of our party 
on the boat. The others had come by a 
previous boat, and had landed on the other 
side of the ship, where there was less 
danger. As I look back at it all now, I 
could hardly afford to lose it out of the 
trip. It is a nice thing to step just at the 
right moment, not too soon, not an 
instant too late. It made me think of 
lines I have never seen in print: 

" God's wisdom is immense ; 
His heart profoundly kind, 
God never is before His time, 
And never is behind." 



29 



A Sunshine Trip 

How unlike Him are we ! How apt to 
be behind or before ! 

I think that picture will be a great help 
to me in my inner life. Fortunes have 
been lost by not taking a step when a 
hand has been outreached. How well I 
remember keeping my eye on the officer 
whose hand I was to take ! The waves 
had lifted the boat so that I could step. 
It was no time to look at the waves or at 
those who were watching from the deck 
of the ship. I simply had to step — and 
there was the hand. How vivid it all is 
now as I write ! It illumines such words 
as, "Now is the accepted time/' "Now 
is the day of salvation/' The Holy 
Ghost saith now. 

Another wave lifted me on a level with 
the platform. How often I have seen 
souls lifted by the waves of deep feeling, 
knowing that the ship of safety must be 

30 



Tunis 



reached ; and yet at the moment they 

must take the step of faith, they allow 

themselves to be swept back. " And 

they entered not." Why ? Because they 

feared — they doubted. Many a step we 

would take, if we but listened to the words 

of warning, — 

" To doubt would be disloyalty, 
To faker would be sin." 

When the step is taken which lands us 

not in the arms of earthly friends merely, 

but in the everlasting arms, and we are 

greeted by the Captain of our Salvation 

and congratulated on our safety — this is 

bliss indeed. And with such a Captain, 

and in the company of those with us in 

the ship, we are ready for any calm or 

storm that may be ahead of us, before we 

drop anchor on the far shore, where, 

whatever the words may mean, whether 

of mystery or separation, " there shall 

be no more sea ! " 



MALTA 



THERE is a peculiar interest to me in 
visiting the island of Malta, aside 
from my desire to see an old friend who 
resides on the island, and of whose 
beautiful home I had so often heard, 
and now hope to have the pleasure of 
visiting. It was off this island that the 
vision of the angel came to Saint Paul. 
It was there he said of God, " whose 
I am and whom I serve,' ' — a word I have 
need to remember in these days of travel, 
for travelling, even in Bible lands, does 
not necessarily make you spiritual ; in- 
deed, it is just the reverse. There is so 
much to attract the attention and dissipate 
the thought, that unless you see the things 
32 



Malta 

that are not seen, while looking at the 
things that are temporal, you can be- 
come entirely worldly. On the very spot 
almost where Saint Paul was shipwrecked, 
you will find yourself gazing at laces and 
silks curiously woven, and you will think 
of this one and that one to whom you 
would like to take these things, forgetting 
that they could not be much to others 
without the associations. Yet there is 
another side, and I really feel indebted to 
a gentleman who said to me a few minutes 
ago, when I told him I feared I should 
backslide, going into the shops and look- 
ing at the curious things and wanting to 
buy what I did n't need : " Do you 
ever think that in buying you are keep- 
ing people from starvation ? This is 
the mission of these people ; they are 
taught of God to make the Maltese lace ; 
and if there was no one to buy it, what 
3 33 



A Sunshine Trip 

would become of them ? " I realized 
in that conversation with a thoughtful 
man, the truth of the old word, c< The 
merchandise of it [of wisdom] is better 
than the merchandise of silver, and the 
gain thereof than fine gold/' He helped 
me, and showed me, what I was in dan- 
ger of forgetting, that " as God has given 
some of us money, we are responsible for 
giving it ; while others who have not that 
mission must look out that in no way 
they dim the fine gold of thought and 
inspiration God has given them." A con- 
versation like the one I had with this 
same gentleman made me think that we 
so seldom give this exchange of our best 
thoughts to one another. 

But I had commenced to tell you about 
Malta. We were fortunate in being there 
on the first day of Lent, and we heard 
a part of the sermon preached by the 
34 



Malta 

Bishop of Malta (alas ! we did not under- 
stand a word of what he said) in the 
famous Church of St. John. This 
church was constructed by the Knights 
of Malta, and because the Maltese cross 
that we wear as members of the order of 
The King's Daughters and Sons was their 
symbol, I was especially interested in 
learning all I could about these Knights. 
The floor on which I stood while listen- 
ing to the Bishop preach was inlaid with 
some two hundred mortuary slabs in 
memory of the Knights. They are very 
quaint, and many of them curiously beau- 
tiful. The order was, as perhaps you 
know, both military and religious. The 
church is surmounted by a Maltese 
cross, beneath which is a figure of our 
Saviour. I was most interested in going 
down, not long afterwards, into a crypt, 
or chapel, and finding myself surrounded 
35 



A Sunshine Trip 

by all that was left of the bodies of two 
thousand of the Knights of Malta. 
Their skulls are curiously arranged in 
figures, and the bones of their arms made 
to form the Maltese cross. Under the 
altar in Latin we read these words : The 
world is a theatre, and human life is a per- 
sonification of vanity. Death breaks in and 
dissolves the illusion, and is the boundary of 
all worldly things. Let those who visit 
this place think on these maxims. Pray for 
perpetual rest to the dead lying herein, and 
carry with you a lovely remembrance of 
death. Peace be with you. We said 
" Amen " as we turned away, leaving the 
bones of the brave Knights behind us. 
Their life had been very stormy, and we 
were glad to think of them as at rest. 

We did not care to see in one of the 
chapels above the altar a thorn which was 
said to be a portion of the crown of 
36 



Malta 

thorns worn by Christ ; nor a fragment of 
the cradle of the infant Jesus, nor one of 
the stones which slew St. Stephen, nor sev- 
eral other " sacred relics." We felt there 
was much more need to be willing to be 
thorn-crowned ourselves, and to have the 
spirit of the Holy Child Jesus, and to be 
careful we did not throw stones at any of 
the living saints. We were told that the 
crucifix over the altar was made from the 
basin used at the washing of the disciples' 
feet. How much easier it is to worship 
in the letter rather than in the spirit ! 
And yet the Master's words so plainly 
spoken are, " God is a spirit, and they who 
worship Him must worship Him in 
spirit and in truth." But after all, the 
interest in the island is associated with 
Saint Paul. No one, I think, can doubt 
but that here is the spot spoken of in the 
first verse of the 28th chapter of Acts: 
37 



A Sunshine Trip 

" And when they were escaped, then they 
knew that the island was called Malta 
(Melita)." It is certainly a place where 
two seas meet, "a creek with a shore." 
I certainly felt that I was on sacred 
ground. 

In 1845 a white statue of the Apostle 
was erected, visible far to seaward, and it 
requires but little imagination to picture 
the truly grand old man standing on the 
deck of that stranded ship, calmer and 
more self-possessed than any experienced 
sailor of that shipwrecked company. 
One is glad to think that Saint Luke was 
with him. There is a statue also of the 
beloved physician not far away from that 
of Saint Paul. Ah, Saint Paul was the 
Knight of the Cross ; all other Knights 
pale before that hero of the Cross of 
the Crucified One. 



33 



« 'WAY DOWN IN EGYPT LAND." 



CAN it be possible I am in Egypt ? 
We approached the mysterious 
land on the morning of the 21st of Feb- 
ruary. The blue Mediterranean never 
looked half so blue as it did that morn- 
ing, and the sunlight on the white shores 
of Egypt made a picture never to 
be forgotten. It was a fitting close of 
our radiant voyage on the beautiful 
Mediterranean. 

Soon the row-boats were on their way 
to us. We were not in Cook's party, 
so we were not on the side of the ship 
where the great crowd was. Our courier 
was on the lookout for Mr. Clark's agent. 
We easily distinguished him by the 
39 



A Sunshine Trip 

American flag which he carried. Then 
ensued a scene beyond all description for 
wildness. The " children of the desert " 
are by no means so quiet as is the desert. 
I never heard such a babel of voices in 
all my life, and I knew the meaning of 
"fleet of foot" as I saw these Arabs, 
carrying our trunks, run down the lad- 
der with a swiftness that was bewildering. 
I could quite understand their running 
before the chariots. 

What we should have done without 
Mr. Valentine, our courier, I could not 
say, for he could shout in Arabic with 
the best of them. Shephard's was over- 
crowded, so we drove to the Continental, 
where rooms were waiting for us, and we 
soon found ourselves in a most delightful 
hotel. If we had wished to see titled 
people, the Duke of Cambridge and other 

notable people could be seen at the hotel. 
40 



"'Way down in Egypt Land" 

I shall always remember that four 
hours' railway journey from Alexandria 
to Cairo. The palms could be seen in 
the moonlight, and occasional white 
houses of some kind or other; but it 
was a desert-looking place, and as I 
looked out of the window of the car, I 
could see in imagination the blessed 
Mother with the Child in her arms, flee- 
ing into Egypt, — that Babe, the hope 
of the world. And so many old words 
had such a new meaning as I said over 
and over to myself, " I am in Egypt ! " 
" Out of Egypt have I called my Son." 
The old Bible stories of my childhood 
came back to me, and the weird strains 
of another dark race, singing, " Let my 
people go." Everything is fascinating 
to me. The figures in vari-coloured 
costumes, in our hotel, or flitting in 
and out among the palms that are every- 



A Sunshine Trip 

where, made a variety of pictures. The 
white and sky-blue of their robes, the 
variety of colours in their turbans, all 
formed a moving panorama. I had 
thought I had seen black people, but 
I never saw anything so black as these 
Nubians. 

As I opened my Bible this morning I 
read, " Fear not to go down into Egypt ; 
. . . I will go down with thee into Egypt ; 
and I will surely bring thee up again." 
This word was given me by a friend as I 
left New York, but it means more than 
ever to me this morning. I was sorry we 
could not have stopped in Alexandria 
for a few hours on our way to Cairo. 
It was in this city, founded by Alexan- 
der the Great, that the Old Testament 
was translated into Greek from the 
Hebrew, receiving the name of the Sep- 
tuagint from the fact that threescore and 
42 



"'Way down in Egypt Land" 

ten pious scholars, called " The Seventy," 
were engaged in the work. But we were 
eager to get our letters, and though our 
trip means more to us than those trips 
that are described as "rushing through 
Europe to get letters from home," yet 
we were very desirous to hear from home. 



43 



CAIRO 



AND now shops, bazaars, mosques ! 
Nearly two thousand of them, I 
learn. The distant pyramids ! The 
famous museums ! All to be visited 
immediately ! 

Undoubtedly the best way is to take 
a carriage, or walk out and stroll, and 
take in, for the first time, Oriental life 
in this way. I saw that morning, for 
the first time, the running footmen. 
Never could I have imagined such grace- 
ful movements. No person of position 
drives in Cairo without one or two of 
these attendants. The "sais," they are 
called. They are young and handsome, 
gorgeously attired, and wear skull-caps. 
I learned afterwards, they die young; 
44 



Cairo 

the pace kills them. I could seem to 
see one of these running footmen be- 
fore Allah's chariot. 

The scene in the streets, or alleys, 
where the shops are, beggars description. 
It seemed as if every nationality were 
represented. How the donkeys could 
get through streets where there did not 
seem to be room for more than two 
persons to walk abreast, was surprising. 
We did not spend much time in the 
shops ; we wanted to see the pyramids. 

You get the first glimpse of the pyra- 
mids from the windows of the railway 
carriage, — as you come from Alexan- 
dria; but at that distance you are not 
impressed by their size. You do not 
feel as you do when you see the Alps 
for the first time ; but when you get to 
them, the effect is wonderful. Oh, the 
awful shadow the great pyramid casts ! 
45 



A Sunshine Trip 

It shuts out everything. That one 
pyramid is all you can see. We all 
have read that hundreds of years ago 
the great pyramid was stripped of the 
outer blocks to build Arab mosques 
and palaces ; that accounts for its un- 
finished look. 

The gentlemen of our party ascended 
that awful staircase, but we women did 
not. For we took no chances during our 
travels, and that is one reason, perhaps, 
why we returned in such vigorous phys- 
ical condition. I should have liked to 
see the colour of the pyramid in a 
certain light when, I am told, it looks 
like a pile of gold. Perhaps to be told 
that it stands one hundred and sixteen 
feet higher than the top of St. Paul's 
dome gives some idea of its size ; but 
to stand up against it was an experience. 
I thought, when looking at the Sphinx, 
46 



Cairo 



of the story I heard, that it never spoke 
but once, and that was when Ralph 
Waldo Emerson stood before it. Then 
the stone lips moved, and Emerson heard 
the words, " You 're another ! " 

Here on the desert I had my first 
experience with a race for which I was 
prepared at least to have respect. To 
be sure, I had had no personal knowl- 
edge of camels till that day. The largest 
camel was selected for me ; why, I cannot 
imagine ! The great creature crouched 
down and the dragoman lifted me on 
its back. The camel gave such a howl- 
ing groan as I did not wish to hear 
repeated ; but I thought it was because 
he would have liked a lighter load. But 
he gave the same awful groan when I 
was taken off, and looked at me after- 
wards. That look took away all respect 
I ever had for camels ; for he plainly 
47 



A Sunshine "Trip 

showed he had no respect for me. That 
look seemed to say : " Why are you 
here? You are too young to look at." 
The camel looked as if he were a thou- 
sand years old. I am sorry to have to 
say all this, but it is true. And what 
with that look and the groaning, I made 
up my mind it belonged to a race of 
grumblers. I do not say camels have 
nothing to grumble about; but they 
grumble when they have no cause for 
grumbling, and grumbling is a very bad 
thing. That was the trouble with the 
children of Israel, in the very land I 
had gone to see. " Their carcasses fell 
in the wilderness " because of grumbling ; 
they " murmured " ; that is, grumbled. 

I had my picture taken while I was 
on that very camel. In the picture I 
have a placid look. Why, I shall never 
he able to understand ; for I think I 



Cairo 



never was more frightened in my life 
than when on that camel. When that 
great creature moved with a groan, and 
I went up, up, and did not know how 
much higher I might go, I assure you, 
although I have been very fond of say- 
ing cc Look up and not down," at this 
time I did not want to look up. I looked 
down and reached down, and said to the 
dragoman and another Egyptian standing 
by, " Oh, keep hold of my hands ! " 
and then came another of those awful 
groans ! I was thoroughly scared ! 

I did take a short ride on the dreadful 
creature afterwards, just to be able to say 
I had done it (I doubt whether that 
thing ever pays !), but it was my last as 
well as my first ride on a camel. I am 
sorry my dream about camels is dispelled ; 
but ever since then I have had to count 
them out of my objects of admiration. 
4 49 



ON A SAND-BANK 



OUR boat ! I may have joy in many 
boats in the future, but I shall take 
no such interest in any as I did in this, 
which was all our own. Our House Boat, 
— what a haven it was to us the night we 
foolishly walked from the station to it 
instead of taking the donkeys ! 

The morning following, I saw a sunrise 
on the Nile, a picture that will stay with 
me for ever ! How we enjoyed being by 
ourselves ! We hardly condescended to 
notice the dahabiyehs that passed us filled 
with other tourists. There was a strange 
fascination in being on the Nile, where it 
never rains, and where the sun always 
shines ; and yet for all the beauty of the 
5° 



On a Sand- bank 

moonlight night on the lovely Nile (which 
I cannot begin to describe) Egypt seemed 
like one vast graveyard. 

One experience on our boat is noted 
in my diary, which has this record : " Out 
of our course." Yes, we were on a sand- 
bank. I looked at other boats, dahabi- 
yehs that were in their course, as they 
sailed by ; but we were on a sand-bank. 
How well I remember the welcome words, 
" We y re off! " that at last greeted us. We 
had been disappointed again and again ; 
had thought more than once we were 
really moving: but now there was no 
doubt of it ; we were in deep water again. 
There are many people who are out of 
their course, and are on a sand-bank. 
There are people who steer according to 
the " course of this world," and they are 
satisfied to stay on their little sand-bank. 
Their God is the God of this world, and 
5* 



A Sunshine 'Trip 

they wish for no other. The saints of 
old were quite bewildered with the pros- 
perity of such, and did not at first see 
that they were in slippery places. And 
there are others who start on another 
course, with a purpose to come to their 
best ; and they make mistakes, and find 
themselves out of their course and on a 
sand-bank. Now, apart from all the 
chances that brought them there, and all 
the helps that at last made them move 
into deeper water, it is a very pleasant cry 
to hear resound within to the ear of the 
soul, as well as it was to us in our dif- 
ficulty, — <c We We off! " How pleasant 
it was just to know that we were moving ! 
Safety is to be sought in the mid-stream. 



5 2 



OUR DRAGOMAN 



HOW the tall form and intelligent face 
of our dragoman stands before me 
now, and I can hear his voice in the 
tombs at Thebes, calling our especial 
attention to the figures and scenes on the 
walls. He was quite silent as he rode 
by my side that day on our way to the 
tombs. I think the only time he spoke 
to me was when he said of the little 
Mohammedan girl, " She has no mother " ; 
but I talked to him in the tombs that 
day as he explained everything. Imagine 
my surprise at hearing him say, " Ma- 
dame, here is a four o'clock tea " ; and 
sure enough, cut in the stone was a little 
53 



A Sunshine Trip 

table, and not only the cups and saucers, 
tea-pot, sugar-bowl, and milk-jug, but even 
the biscuits. This was done four thou- 
sand years ago, and the faces of the ladies 
did not seem unlike faces you meet on 
Fifth Avenue. 

In this tomb I saw more symbols of the 
one doctrine which lived, we are told, 
persistently and unchanged, in the Egyp- 
tian mind for five thousand years : the 
doctrine of the future life. So much was 
symbolical of the resurrection. Indeed, 
the grand tombs themselves were not 
built as mere objects of pride, but as ever- 
lasting habitations which would preserve 
the body from decay and keep it ready to 
be reinhabited by the soul at the proper 
season. 

But at last I became tired of the per- 
petual, " This is the god so and so, and 
this is the god of that and that," and I 
54 



Our Dragoman 

exclaimed, " Oh, mercy ! they have a god 
for everything, have they not ? " 

" Oh, yes," he said, " for everything." 

" But there is only one God," I ex- 
claimed very earnestly. Then the face 
of our dragoman lighted up as he said, 
" There is only one God " ; and I knew 
what he was going to add, so I shook 
my head, smiling, and repeated, " There 
is only one God," and, " Thou shalt have 
no other gods before Me." He smiled 
as I passed on with him, repeating to my- 
self, " I am the Lord thy God." 

How surpassing strange it has been, 
day after day, to look at so much that 
is four thousand years old ! I am quite 
used to the words, cc so many years before 
Christ." I am bewildered with the old- 
ness of everything. I sit on the deck 
of our boat and see them drawing up 
water from the Nile just as it was drawn 
55 



A Sunshine Trip 

up four thousand years ago. This won- 
derful Nile ! The ancient Egyptians rec- 
ognised how very much they owed to 
the Nile, and in their hymns they thank 
the Nile-god in appropriate and grateful 
terms. Statues of the god are painted 
green and red, which colours are supposed 
to represent respectively the bright green 
colour of the river in June before the in- 
undation, and the ruddy hue which the 
water has when changed by the red mud 
brought down from the Abyssinian moun- 
tains. The river has a strange fascina- 
tion for me. It makes Egypt. In all 
the marvellous tombs of the kings, every- 
where, you see the Nile cut in the stone, 
and the sacred boat on the sacred river. 

It was a never-ending source of wonder 
to me that the colours could retain their 
brilliancy after so many thousands of 
years. You see the same beautiful green 
56 



Our Dragoman 

of the Nile in the representations of the 
sacred serpent, which also is graven on 
all the tombs. I saw so many of the 
kings' heads crowned with the serpent. 
The sculpture in these tombs is wonder- 
ful. Usually it symbolises the life of 
the kings. Now and then some sym- 
bolic picture in the tombs gave to the 
words in our New Testament a new sig- 
nificance. I saw one of the gods offer- 
ing the water of life, and the words of 
Christ came so freshly to my mind : " If 
any man thirst, let him come unto Me 
and drink." Another symbol was the 
tree of life. How real it was to me, that 
^ what they were groping after we have in 
our glorious gospel \ t The sun-god was 
on every wall, but the warm healing rays 
of the Sun of Righteousness they did not 
know. 

I can see now why Egypt has been 
57 



A Sunshine "Trip 

used by Christians as a symbol of unre- 
generate nature. Yet in its unregenerate 
state there is the longing for a better life, 
the need of worship ; and so we "fill these 
lower courts with broken images of Him." 
It is all so pathetic to me ; at times I 
cannot look at the misery, so often the 
result of their dismal belief. The flies, 
being considered sacred, never can be 
brushed even from their eyes. Blindness 
is therefore very common, and nothing 
could be more pitiful than the suffering 
of the little children, their eyes almost 
covered with the flies. 

How lovely our Christianity is by con- 
trast ! I cannot conceive of any one 
visiting this land and not loving the 
Founder of our faith more and more. 
Yet, the Egyptian spirit is in our Chris- 
tian land, and we have to fight idolatry 
in ourselves. The words I heard so 
58 



Our Dragoman 

often still ring in my ears, — "I am very 
hungry, lady." At first I thought she 
wanted something to eat. I had some 
crackers in my pocket which I thought 
she might like, for I knew it was the 
time of the fast, so I handed the child 
a cracker ; but she said, " Oh, no, lady, 
hungry for backsheesh/' Ah, yes, hungry 
for money. The one cry everywhere, 
more money ! I said to one of the girls 
who put out her little brown hand and 
cried, " Backsheesh,'' — 

" I did give you some money." 

" Oh, yes," she said, cc thank you, lady, 
but more ! more ! " 

I am glad we go from Egypt to the 
Holy Land. <f I would see Jesus"; and 
yet the truth that I thought was real to 
me is more real to me to-day. " The 
Kingdom is within you." What we are, 
not what we see ! Man's happiness comes 
59 



A Sunshine 'Trip 

never from without. All you get in 
travelling is from what you carry with 
you. The old truths will be wonderfully 
illuminated for me by these journeyings 
into new, distant lands. 

In wandering among these ruins of 
magnificent temples, you naturally think 
of what they must have cost. Of course 
it is impossible to estimate, but we are 
told that every palace, every temple, rep- 
resented a hecatomb of human lives. We 
know how the Hebrews suffered, and yet 
they were less cruelly used than some 
who were kidnapped from beyond the 
frontier. One can hardly endure the 
thought of the suffering undergone by 
those who laboured under ground, goaded 
on, without rest or respite, till they fell 
down in the mines and died. There are 
lessons to be learned in this land of Egypt 
for those who are studying the problems 
60 



Our Dragoman 

of capital and labour. The Sermon on 
the Mount is the solution of the social 
problem. 

The one central figure that is with you 
all the time you are on the Nile, from the 
hour when you saw him as a mummy in 
the Museum in Cairo, is Rameses the 
Second, the Pharaoh of the Captivity, 
whose son and successor was the Pharaoh 
of the Exodus. This, I believe, has 
been settled. The Bible and the monu- 
ments confirm one another. One is always 
sorry that Moses did not once call either 
of the three Pharaohs by the cartouche 
name, but I have read that they were not 
allowed either to speak or write the names 
of their kings. As I roam through these 
ruins and imagine the glory, they seem 
to me soaked with human suffering. As 
I looked at the features of Rameses the 
Second in the Museum at Cairo, I quoted 
61 



A Sunshine Trip 

to myself the words, " There 's nothing 
great but God " ; I said it again on the 
Nile ; I felt it more deeply still when I 
wandered through the ruins of the great 
temple he built, — the aisles of which 
undoubtedly Moses wandered through, 
and pondered in his heart the meaning 
of all this earthly grandeur, only the 
ruins of which we now see. He was a 
prince among princes, the adopted son of 
the king's daughter ; he knew how much 
of all this earthly magnificence would be 
his. As I walked over the ground where 
Moses walked, through those halls of 
ruined greatness, those words in the 
eleventh chapter of Hebrews never were 
more significant to me : He chose " rather 
to suffer affliction with the people of God, 
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for 
a season ; esteeming the reproach of 
Christ greater riches than the treasures in 
62 



Our Dragoman 

Egypt ; for he had respect unto the recom- 
pense of the reward." And he has it. 

What now is that mummy in the 
Museum, and his empty tomb on the 
Nile, and all these broken statues of the 
great king, compared with Moses, who 
gave the Ten Commandments from the 
hand of God to this sinful world ? How 
wise Moses was to choose affliction with 
the people of God ! All the interest we 
have to-day in these kings and tombs is 
that they prove the truth of what was 
written by Moses, the great law-giver 
of the world. 

I would consider my visit to Egypt a 
failure did I not take in the inner truth 
taught me by all that I saw. It is certain 
that only character, only spirit, lives on. 
The tombs are being ransacked. The 
mummy is taken out to be exhibited, and 
one exclaims, " I have seen an end of hu- 
63 



A Sunshine 'Trip 

man greatness." But the cross brightens 
in the shadows, and you feel sure it will 
triumph, because it is the power of love 
in suffering ; it is the laying down of life 
for others; it is the eternal emblem of 
voluntary self-sacrifice! I shall sing, 

t€ In the cross of Christ I glory, 
Towering o'er the wrecks of time,' 

with a deeper meaning after my visit 
to Egypt, and our trip up the Nile. 



64 



FAREWELL TO THE RUINS 
OF EGYPT 



A FRENCH writer has put Egypt in 
an epigram : " A donkey ride and 
a boating trip interspersed with ruins." 
Miss Edwards said that this sentence 
gave the whole experience of the Nile 
traveller, and added, apropos of these three 
things, the donkeys, the boat, and the ruins : 
" It may be said that a good English sad- 
dle and a comfortable dahabiyeh add 
very considerably to the pleasure of the 
journey, and that the more one knows 
about the past of the country the more 
one enjoys the ruins." The first two, 
the saddle and boat, we had ; but, speak- 
ing only for myself, I was not well read up 
5 6 S 



A Sunshine Trip 

on the ruins, so I cannot say with Miss 
Martineau that I was not satisfied to sit 
down to breakfast without having first 
explored a temple ; much less could I 
say with Miss Edwards, " I could have 
breakfasted, dined, and supped on tem- 
ples." She says her appetite for them was 
insatiable, and grew with what it fed on. 
To tell the truth, I became tired of them 
after I had seen the greatest of them ; but 
we were unfortunate in being at Luxor 
and Karnak in extremely hot weather. 
To be sure we did not have to walk ; we 
had our donkeys. Among the ruins at 
Karnak, — and they were the grandest by 
far, — the temple where undoubtedly 
Moses walked, the temple built by 
Rameses the Second, the Pharaoh of 
Moses' time, was the most interesting to 
me. At Karnak, after looking again at 

the kings and the gods and goddesses 
66 



Farewell to the Ruins of Egypt 

sculptured in the walls and looking up 

and down the vast aisles of pillars (one 

hundred and thirty in that temple, each 

one measuring eleven yards around), I felt 

like singing (and we did), — 

" My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 
Thy name I love. 
I love thy rocks and rills, 
Thy woods and templed hills." 

I seem to see in these temples the Hebrew 
children making bricks without straw ; 
and the unwritten history of millions 
of sufferers. In the ruins of the tem- 
ple at Karnak, I saw little boys not 
over twelve years of age carrying great 
stones for one piastre a day (five cents 
of our money). The excavations are 
going on. I looked at five of the sacred 
bulls which have been unearthed during 
the year; and every day discoveries are 
being made. 

67 



A Sunshine Trip 

There is no end of tombs. Egypt 
seems a vast sepulchre beneath our feet. 
In going to the temple yesterday, we 
passed through a very long avenue of 
palms, with the lesser sphinxes on either 
side which have been unearthed recently. 
There seems also no end to the sphinxes. 
I wish I had seen the picture a well- 
known writer speaks of. She says : " You 
see in the picture a brown, half-naked, 
toil-worn fellah laying his ear to the stone 
lips of a colossal sphinx buried to the 
neck in sand. Some instinct of the old 
Egyptian blood tells him the creature is 
godlike. He is conscious of a great 
mystery lying far back in the past. He 
has perhaps a dim, confused notion that 
the big head knows it all, whatever it 
may be ; he fancies those closed lips 
might speak if questioned. Fellah and 
sphinx are alone together in the desert. 
68 



Farewell to the Ruins of Egypt 

It is night, and the stars are shining. Has 
he chosen the right hour? What does 
he seek to know ? What does he hope 
to hear ? Under the picture you read, — 

" Each must interpret for himself 
The secret of the sphinx." 

How glad I am that our God is not 
silent to us ! He does speak to us. We 
do hear His voice, and we not only have 
a God that knows, but one that loves. I 
hoped that I should get from this trip an 
illuminated Bible, and I am getting it. 

<c Come this way," our dragoman called 
out yesterday in the temple at Karnak, 
" and see the tree of life." As I stepped 
along over the stones the words came so 
vividly to my mind that I repeated them 
as I looked up at the sculptured tree with 
one of the gods in the centre of it : 
"And on either side of the river was 
69 



A Sunshine Trip 

there the tree of life." Then he directed 
our attention to one of the gods pouring 
out the water of life. I shook my head 
as I said, " If any man thirst, let him 
come unto Me and drink " ; " I am the 
water of life." 

I was reading a long letter to one of 
our party afterwards. I had been writing 
and giving my reflections while in that 
same temple ; our dragoman was leaning 
up against the side of the boat, and I dis- 
covered that he was an attentive listener. 
When I read, " I am God, and beside Me 
there is none else," I happened to look 
up, and the bright smile was on his intelli- 
gent face. I smiled and said, " One God ! " 
and added : " You are my Mohammedan 
brother and I am your Christian sister. 
We may not see alike here " (laying my 
hand on my head), " but God looks here," 
I said (as I laid my hand on my heart). 
70 



Farewell to the Ruins of Egypt 

He smiled, as in his broken English he 
said, " Ah, yes, you are right ! " 

While we were there, quite a procession 
passed through the temple, singing. I 
asked the dragoman what they were say- 
ing, and he replied that they w T ere praying to 
the prophet. " Praying to the prophet ! " 
I said : " Are they priests ? " " Oh, no, 
only the workingmen. They say, c Allah, 
help us ! oh, help us ! ' " These people 
affect me. The more I see of them, the 
more they appeal to my pity. 

On our way home we rode through an 
Arab village. The street was so narrow 
I could see the faces of the people at their 
work. Of course they are noisy; but 
they strike me as being innocent and 
harmless. I said to our dragoman who 
was riding at my side : " Where are the 
rich people ? All I see are so poor." 
He replied, " There are only one or two in 
7* 



A Sunshine Trip 

a place ; all the rest are poor, very poor." 
A few minutes after a fine turn-out passed 
us, — two gentlemen. One was the son of 
the French consul ; he is a captain, and for 
the second time I saw the graceful runner 
who runs before the carriage. Never 
could I have imagined such gracefulness, 
such fleetness. Once again the sight of 
the runner makes so life-like certain Old 
Testament scenes. But one can only feel 
pity for the men who must thus earn their 
daily bread. The abject misery of the 
poorer classes is pitiable. No wonder their 
constant cry is, " Money ! " Why is it, I 
have so often asked myself, where one sees 
the greatest beauty of architecture, one sees 
the poorest specimens of humanity ? The 
great cathedrals of Europe impoverished 
the people of the places where they were 
built, and the contrast between the ruins 
of these magnificent temples and the utter 
72 



Farewell to the Ruins of Egypt 

poverty of the people never ceases to 
impress me. 

We 're off I Such a clapping of hands 
and such glad shouting on Sunday the 
first of March, as we found ourselves mov- 
ing off the sand-bank where we had been 
stranded for twenty-four hours ! " Out 
of our course," cc shallow water," and like 
expressions, had a significant meaning for 
me. When night came, and I could hear 
the voices of the Arabs busy at work try- 
ing to get us off the sand-bank, I went 
into my state-room and' took up my Bible 
with a hope that God would speak to me 
through the sacred Word., I had seen so 
many things that were called sacred : " sa- 
cred river," "sacred serpent," "sacred eye," 
" sacred boat " ; everything sacred, but not 
making the worshippers sacred ; an utter 
absence of the Spirit. So to take up our 
"sacredbook" was a joy ; and as I opened it 

73 



A Sunshine "Trip 

my eyes fell on the words, " Thy thoughts 
are very deep." They had a fresh mean- 
ing because our trouble had been that we 
were not in deep water. So I had some 
profitable reflections during the time we 
were trying to get off the sand-bank. It 
is very easy to get out of a deep current, 
God's current ; from God's deep thoughts 
into shallow streams, and on some sand- 
bank. But it is not so very easy to get 
off these sand-banks. 

I see so many people in life who are 
evidently out of God's current ; they have 
not taken their soundings, and so have 
drifted on to these sand-banks. A little 
distance from them you see other barks, 
not so valuable, perhaps, sailing along in 
the right current, as we saw boats through 
all those hours when we were not moving. 
The trouble with so many of us is that we 
do not keep in the current of God's 
74 



Farewell to the Ruins of Egypt 

thoughts. They are " very deep" but we 
drift into the shallow current of our own 
thoughts or other people's thoughts, and 
so we miss the grand sailing in God's deep 
river of thought. 

So there was much of cheer in the two 
words, cc We We off! " It was Sunday 
morning when we heard these cheering 
words, and I went to my state-room to get 
my Bible to have a little reading in the 
Old Testament. It is wonderful how 
illumined the Old Testament is now that 
I have seen the sculptured idols of all the 
Egyptians that God told His ancient peo- 
ple they should not worship. With what 
a new meaning Joshua's last charge to the 
children of Israel came home to me ! God 
would not have them speak the names 
of these gods. (How tired I became of 
their names !) I think never did God's 
command, "Thou shalt have no other 
75 



A Sunshine 'Trip 

gods before me," sound so grand. We 
may well say, " Incline my heart to 
keep this law." It is no little thing to 
obey God. I realised it on this Sunday 
morning. 

The word came that we were nearing 
one of the places where we were to see 
the ruins. If I had not seen any, and 
this was my only chance, I might have 
felt it was the right thing to do, but we 
had seen the greatest of them ; and while 
I know the difficulty there is in drawing 
the line, I do think that for those who 
profess to be serving God there should 
be at least one day sacred to Him, and 
that our Sunday should not be used for 
sight-seeing. There should be a Sab- 
bath. What an example we had of this 
in the devout Mohammedans. How 
impressive it was to see those whose 

emblem is not the cross prostrate them- 
76 



Farewell to the Ruins of Egypt 

selves at sunrise and sunset, no matter 
who happened to be near. 

This morning I noticed our dragoman 
did not move while I sang, standing by 
the side of the boat, the entire hymn, 
"In the cross of Christ I glory " — and 
he understands English well. Oh, the 
difference it would make in this people if 
they only knew and followed Jesus Christ ! 

We are soon to be in the land of His 
birth, where He was " brought up," lived 
and died ; and yet His own words fol- 
low me, " The Kingdom is within you." 
It must be Christ in us. What a mean- 
ing will be connected with, cc Ye are the 
temple of the living God," and " What ! 
know ye not your bodies are the temples 
for the Holy Ghost to dwell in ? " How 
full of instruction was everything I laid 
my eyes on, and I could not but call to 
mind that the Great Teacher drew His 
77 



A Sunshine Trip 

deepest lessons from the commonest 
things. As I looked at the forms being 
unearthed, I thought of the buried souls 
that need to emerge out of darkness into 
God's marvellous light. Unearthed ! 
How significant the word sounded ! I 
stood close one day and saw one feature 
after another come in sight. The work- 
men gathered around to see the sight ; 
for what was coming was of unusual 
worth. I marked how careful the work- 
man was who was using the instrument. 
Oh, the infinite care, the infinite patience, 
the Holy Spirit shows in His working 
to restore the lost image ! Maybe, if 
we could see deeply enough, we should 
see how much has to be removed in 
order that the buried treasures may 
come to light. I learned more than 
one lesson as I stood and saw faces of 

stone unearthed that afternoon. 

78 



THE SCARABEES 



I WANT to tell you of the little insect 
that has had so much greatness thrust 
upon it, and the lesson I learned from it, 
and how it reminded me of the real mean- 
ing of our order of " The King's Daugh- 
ters." Perhaps you know about these 
scarabees. Every traveller on the Nile 
has had them offered to him for sale ; per- 
haps genuine, more likely not. You have 
to buy them sooner or later to get rid of 
those who offer them. You know per- 
haps the history of this Egyptian insect. 

A well-known writer says : " This 
beetle lays its eggs by the river's brink, 
encloses them in a ball of moist clay, 
rolls the ball to a place of safety on the 
79 



A Sunshine Trip 

edge of the desert, buries it in the sand, 
and when its time comes, dies content, 
having provided for the safety of its 
successors. Hence its mythic fame, 
hence all the quaint symbolism that by 
degrees attached itself to its little per- 
son and ended by investing it with a 
special sacredness which has often been 
mistaken for actual worship. Standing 
by, and watching the movements of 
the creature at its hard work of rolling 
the burden up hill, its untiring energy, 
its extraordinary muscular strength, its 
businesslike devotion to the matter in 
hand, one sees how subtle a lesson the 
old Egyptian moralists had presented to 
them for contemplation ; and with how 
true a combination of wisdom and poetry 
they regarded this little black scarab, not 
only as an emblem of the creative and 
preserving power, but perhaps also of 
80 



The Scarabees 



the immortality of the soul. As a type, 
no insect has ever had so much great- 
ness thrust upon him. He became a 
hieroglyphic, and stood for a word signi- 
fying both c to be/ and € to transform.' 
His portrait was multiplied a millionfold, 
sculptured over the portals of temples, 
fitted to the shoulders of a god, en- 
graved on gems, moulded in pottery, 
painted on sarcophagi and the walls of 
tombs, worn by the living, and buried 
with the dead." 

I wish I had seen the living beetle at 
its work ; but the history of this beetle 
made a great impression on me. I saw 
it in every tomb I visited cut in the walls, 
and I said over and over, if it had lived 
for its own comfort and enjoyment, — in 
short, if it had lived a selfish life, — it 
would never have been known ; and the 
meaning of the word "others" in silver 
6 81 



A Sunshine Trip 

on the ebony cross (a gift one of the 
lovely daughters of our Order gave me as 
I sailed away) had a deeper meaning for 
me. " Others ! " He saved others. If 
any man will save his life, let him lose 
it, " and he that loseth his life for My 
sake, shall find it." 

Did I tell you of a morning on the 
Nile when I rose very early, and, stand- 
ing alone on our deck, looking at the 
shore of Egypt, I sang, — 

" In the cross of Christ I glory, 
Towering o'er the wrecks of time." 

My voice attracted our Mohammedan 

dragoman, and he stood near while I 

sang the whole hymn. Then I turned 

and said to him, " The cross will win, 

it will conquer ; not the crescent, for the 

cross means love, self-sacrificing love." 

Somehow I think he will remember it. 

He smiled at me in his quiet way ; but I 
82 



The Scarabees 



noticed afterwards that he always drew 
near when I sang. He was very interest- 
ing to me ; he always lifted me on my 
donkey as if I had been a baby. Oh, this 
sad, sad Egypt, that I shall bid farewell 
to for ever to-morrow ! I don't wonder 
they took up the bones of Joseph and 
carried them out of Egypt. I would not 
like to be buried in Egypt. There was 
nothing bright but its skies, its sunrising 
and sunsetting. 

I have become acquainted for the first 
time with the Turks on this trip. They 
are never far away from us. I am used 
to seeing them at prayer, not only in their 
mosques, but elsewhere. I was in Cairo 
when their fast, answering to our Lent, 
commenced, and I was in Jaffa, Palestine, 
when it ended, and I saw them on Sunday, 
their great feast day, answering to our 
Easter, and for the first time they looked 
83 



A Sunshine Trip 

happy. They were caring for us in so 
many ways during all their fast of forty 
days, and they never tasted food any of 
those days till after sundown. You 
know there are five commandments that 
Mahomet enforced on his followers. They 
must pray five times a day, bestow alms 
on the poor, perform the pilgrimage to 
Mecca, keep the fast of Ramazan, and 
observe bodily cleanliness as far as possi- 
ble. This last commandment they did 
not seem to keep very strictly, for they 
never looked really clean. 

In the Koran the prophet exhorts his 
followers to believe in one God, in the 
angels, in the other prophets (to the 
number of 124,000), and in himself ] in 
the five books of Revelations, the Psalms, 
the Bible, the Koran, the resurrection 
of the dead, the last judgment, and the 
existence of heaven and hell. 

84 



The Scarabees 

I was surprised to know that they 
believed that Abraham and King David 
were Mohammedans ; and the tomb of 
Rachel is as sacred to a Mohammedan 
as to a Jew or a Christian. They do not 
believe in Jesus. Oh, how often, as I 
have looked into the faces of the Mo- 
hammedan women, have I wished they 
knew Jesus ! 

As there is a painful interest in the 
Turks, — the unspeakable Turk, as we call 
him just now, — you may want me to tell 
you how they look and what seems to be 
their character. Well, in the first place, 
they always are lazy ; they like to sit, as it 
seemed to me, in thoughtless contempla- 
tion over their coffee and cigarette (per- 
haps we have some Turks in our country 
that are called Christians). They always 
seem serious to me. They are extremely 
superstitious. I could tell you of the 
85 



A Sunshine Trip 

strangest superstitions imaginable ; for 
instance, they always keep their nails 
clean, because, if there is the least dirt in 
their nails, that implies unclean spirits. 
I wish some superstition would keep the 
whole body clean. 

Of course you know they are fatalists. 
I never felt any fear of them, but we were 
never alone with them. Our courier was al- 
ways with us ; then we had our dragomans, 
and there was a gentleman in our party. 
The one thing they want is money, and 
they would only hurt themselves by 
harming us. And then they are under a 
chief, and are told what to do and what 
not to do. I must say I did not fall in 
love with them, but I did pity them. 



86 



MY MOHAMMEDAN DAUGHTER 



N the morning of February 27 we 



started soon after breakfast for a 
sight of the tombs of the kings, and for 
a visit to the great Rock Temple of 
Thebes. We crossed the Nile in a most 
ancient-looking boat, and the Arabs came 
walking in the water to carry us in their 
arms on shore. Slender-looking as these 
Arabs were, they took me up as if I had 
been a baby, and stood me on the bank 
where our donkeys were waiting for us. 
I was very glad the largest donkey was 
for me. Again I was lifted by our drago- 
man and put on the donkey's back as if 
I weighed only fifty pounds (my weight 
is considerably more). I looked at the 




A Sunshine Trip 

young Arab at the side of my donkey and 
asked his name. He said his name was 
Abraham, and the name of the donkey 
was Rameses the First. Of course with 
Abraham at my side, and on such a royal 
donkey, I had no fear, and cantered off as 
if I had been always used to donkeys (I 
draw the line at camels) ; and so I took my 
first donkey ride on the desert. 

Shall I ever forget the touch of the lit- 
tle soft brown hand that rested on mine 
as I rode on that donkey over the desert 
to visit the kings' tombs ? I did not see 
the child till I felt the touch of her hand, 
and, as I looked down, I saw that the soft 
eyes of the little Egyptian girl were raised 
to mine as she said, with the tender tones 
peculiar to the children of the East (ex- 
cept when they are angry), " / am your 
daughter?' "My daughter? " I said. 

" Yes," she answered, " I am your daugh- 
88 



My Mohammedan Daughter 

ter " ; and then she looked so tenderly into 
my face as she said, " Nice mother/' 

" And I am your mother ? " I inquired. 

" Yes," she said, smiling, " nice mother. 
I am your daughter." 

" Well, what is my daughter's name ? " I 
inquired. 

c< Amena," she answered. 

"And you are my daughter Amena ? " 

She laughed as again she said, " Yes, 
nice mother!' 

Our dragoman, who was on the other 
side of me, said, " She has no mother ; her 
mother is dead ; she has only a father." 

After that I looked more tenderly at the 
young girl, as she trotted by my side with 
her little feet bare, holding her water jar on 
her head ; so when the words came again, 
" Nice mother," they touched my heart. 

I said to her, " And you have no 
mother ? " 

89 



A Sunshine Trip 

Her face looked very sad as she shook 
her head and said, " No/' and again came 
the words, " I am your daughter ; your 
daughter Amena." 

I said, " Well, if you are my little 
Mohammedan daughter, then I must be 
your Christian mother." I did not know 
how the word " Christian " would strike 
her, but the same smile was on her face as 
she again said, " Nice mother." 

Then I told her in simple language 
about a little daughter of mine whose 
name was Mamie, who had gone to live 
in a beautiful home with Jesus, the one 
who had said " Suffer the little children to 
come unto Me." I do not know how 
much she took in of what I said to her, 
but her face seemed so sad and interesting 
as it was lifted to mine, and her little brown 
hand nestled so closely in mine, that she 
seemed to understand. Just then some 
90 



My Mohammedan Daughter 

other girls of the same age ran up and 
said to me " Nice lady ! " Then Amena 
gave me such an imploring look, and 
turned almost savagely upon these girls, 
and getting closer to me said, " You 
know / am your daughter Amena," as 
much as to say, they only call you " Nice 
lady," — you are my " nice mother." 
Never did I see jealousy in a face more 
plainly than in that child's face. Of 
course I did not forget that what she 
wanted was " backsheesh," but she had 
not uttered the word. 

As we were nearing the tombs I put a 
coin in my daughter's hand, and she dis- 
appeared, and such a sudden disappear- 
ance I never saw ; if the earth had opened 
and swallowed her up, it could not have 
been more sudden. I turned to the 
dragoman and said, " Well, my daughter 
has the money, and it seems as if that was 
9 1 



A Sunshine "Trip 

all she cared for, so she has disappeared/' 
So I did not expect to see my Moham- 
medan daughter again, but I must con- 
fess I was pleased on our return home 
when she appeared again on the desert 
with a fresh jug of water on her head, and 
again I heard the words, " Nice mother," 
and " Thank you, mother," " You know I 
am your daughter, your daughter Amena." 
I was glad I had one little coin left, which 
I put in her hand as I asked her where 
she had been, and she said she had gone 
home. A moment after she pointed to 
her home. It was not so good as a pig- 
sty, — a mud hut in which the owners and 
their donkeys could lie down. Never 
shall I forget that picture of utter deso- 
lation — nothing but those mud holes did 
I see, and these were called homes. 

"I am your daughter ^ Was she not 
God's daughter ? Ah, me ! I often think 
92 



My Mohammedan Daughter 

of my Mohammedan daughter in that 
dreadful desert. She wears no silver cross 
with " In His Name" on it, she is not on 
the roll of The Kings Daughters, and yet 
somehow to me she is my Mohammedan 
daughter, and what is far better, God's Mo- 
hammedan daughter. Years have passed 
since I heard a minister say on a steamer, 
" My poor Mohammedan brothers ! " It 
was the look on his face when he uttered 
the words that made the words stay with 
me. I understand him better to-day as I 
say, " My poor Mohammedan daughter ! " 
Shall I never see her again ? How I wish 
I had done more for her ; had even given 
her more "backsheesh." I never can 
think of any of the poor creatures to 
whom I did not give any money, or gave 
but little, that I do not regret not hav- 
ing given more. They are so wretchedly 
poor ! What we call poverty here is riches 
93 



A Sunshine Trip 

compared with their condition. I know 
how hateful the name Mohammedan is to 
us, but I was taught a lesson I shall not 
soon forget when I heard an Armenian 
woman, whose relatives had been mur- 
dered by the Mohammedans, say, " Oh, we 
desire so that these Mohammedans should 
know our Lord Jesus ; we love their souls, 
and we hope that in seeing us die for the 
love of Christ, they may see that our 
Christianity is the true religion." 

I turn from the picture of my Moham- 
medan daughter on the desert, with a 
prayer for more of the spirit of self-sacri- 
fice that was in the Father of us all, who 
"so loved the world that He gave His 
only begotten Son." Do we love the 
whole world? 



94 



CAIRO AFTER OUR RETURN FROM 
THE NILE 



ON the morning of March the id we 
were up at three o'clock, preparing 
to take the five o'clock train from Girgeh 
for Cairo. We breakfasted on our boat, 
the " Elephantine," for the last time at 
four o'clock. The beautiful moon enabled 
us plainly to see our donkeys, and an 
Egyptian cart on the shore waiting for 
us. Ordinarily I should have preferred 
to ride on the donkey, but the only chance 
I should have of a ride in an Egyptian 
cart was too great a temptation for me, 
so I chose the cart. I had seen so many 
veiled women on these carts (which had 
for seats long boards with carpet thrown 
95 



A Sunshine Trip 

over them). After that ride I could say 
I know how to feel for them, for that 
was certainly hard riding. 

At five o'clock we were on our train, 
with all our baggage, including a very large 
basket of luncheon, for we had to travel 
all day again between two deserts. At six 
o'clock our dusty party arrived in Cairo, 
and then we learned the bad news that 
the cholera was in Cairo. We should 
have to be quarantined wherever we went, 
and we found that thousands were wait- 
ing to get out of Cairo. For a little time 
everything was so uncertain that I did not 
know but that I was going to miss seeing 
the Holy Land. For this I had come. 
Glad as I was of all that came to me on 
the way, still my heart had been set on 
seeing the land of His birth ; the land 
where He worked, and suffered. 

It took us all day to go from Cairo to 
96 



Cairo after our Return from the Nile 

Port Said. We travelled through the 
Desert of Arabia, and it was refreshing 
to have our courier come to our window 
and point to Moses' Spring in the distance. 
We looked and saw some rocks quite a 
way off, and he told us that it was there 
that Moses smote the rock and a spring 
of water gushed out. Not long after we 
saw a sight most refreshing to see in a 
desert, — a small lake of water, which the 
guide said was the spot where Pharaoh 
was overthrown in the Red Sea ; we 
certainly felt we were travelling over the 
land of the ancient story we knew so well. 
I got out of the cars and ran up a sandy 
hill to Abraham Heights, but before I 
had a chance to explore, the whistle blew, 
and I had to go back. 

Now we were approaching what I 
wanted to see, — the Suez Canal. Never 
can I forget the sight. All I could think 
7 97 



A Sunshine 'Trip 

of was ships that sail in the desert. Very 
large ships they were ; we saw five that 
were sailing along that blue canal. All 
the hopes, and the realisations of the 
hopes of different nations in having that 
canal finished, flashed upon the mind ; the 
expense of it ; the use of it ; the sad history 
of the man associated with it, all come 
upon you so quickly. But the evening 
shut in on us, and looking out at the 
stars, and the lights that were becoming 
more and more distinct along the shore, 
we soon found ourselves at Port Said, 
where the yacht was waiting to take us to 
Beyroot, and in a few moments we bade 
farewell to the land of Egypt. We 
were very desirous to be off its shore, 
and we thought we could put up with 
any inconvenience if we were only free 
from Egypt. 



98 



MOSQUES 



MY first appearance in a mosque was 
in Algiers. I was, of course, in- 
terested in watching the Mohammedans at 
their devotions. It was a strange sight 
to me. I watched one man for a long 
time. The contrast between the Roman 
Catholic churches and the mosques are 
so great : the Mohammedans stand before 
the Invisible: no sign, no altars — no 
sound. I am sorry to say the look the 
man gave me when his eyes rested on me 
after his prayer, did not show that his 
religious exercises had improved his dis- 
position, but I do not know that that 
fault is confined to Mohammedans. I 
have seen Christians whose dispositions 
did not seem improved by their religious 
exercises ; however, I don't think a Chris- 
99 



A Sunshine Trip 

tian could have looked at me as that 
Mohammedan did. I was n't long in get- 
ting off my religious slippers after that. 
As a rule, the Mohammedans were ex- 
ceedingly disagreeable to me ; they were 
so dirty-looking, and yet their religion 
requires so much bathing. I could never 
help thinking what they would have been 
if they had not bathed so frequently. 

How more and more precious our 
Christianity becomes at every step of 
the way ! After we reached Egypt, we 
became quite used to the mosques. The 
day after we visited the great pyramid, 
we went to visit the mosque of Sultan 
Hassan, the most beautiful in Cairo, and 
perhaps the most beautiful in the Moslem 
world. It looks as if it would soon be a 
beautiful ruin. We are told that never 
in Cairo is anything repaired. New 
buildings go up, but no matter how 

IOO 



Mosques 

venerable the old is — it is allowed to 
moulder away inch by inch till nothing 
remains but a ruin. Of course, before 
we entered the great court, we were 
obliged to put on the slippers. 

There was a charming fountain in the 
court. It was all open to the sky, cov- 
ered with prayer rugs, and there was a 
pulpit in the centre, and under the pulpit 
I saw a man that I was told had come to 
stay during the forty days' fast, and in 
that time he would eat nothing. All 
who came here seemed to come to pray, 
but you must remember these mosques 
are places of rest and refuge. Beside a 
man prostrate in prayer, I saw another 
man sewing buttons on his coat. It was 
new to me then that the Moslems are as 
devout out of the mosque as in it — (the 
good ones). Are all Christians as devout 
out of church as in it ? 

IOI 



LEAVING CAIRO FOR PALESTINE 



THE sixth of March finds us again 
on the blue Mediterranean. Un- 
doubtedly, the inner history, the unwritten 
history, is by far the most important in 
our eyes. Shut up alone in that state- 
room (my friends not knowing then of 
my sore throat), with the fever on me, 
I did not know but that my condition 
might be very serious. We were near- 
ing Palestine, the land I had come so far 
to see, and I did not know what was 
before me ; it was one of the loneliest 
hours of my life, — spirit loneliness. 
And into the darkness and loneliness the 
living Christ came and said, "Without 

102 



Leaving Cairo for Palestine 

Me ye can do nothing." When all the 
memory of my trip to the East, when all 
the outward, in a coming hour, shall have 
faded from my mind, "without Me" 
will still remain. 

It was my preparation for the Jerusa- 
lem that was not to be what I had 
dreamed. It was my preparation for 
my disappointment at not seeing so much 
I came to see ; but yet I was not to be 
" without Him," and that, after all, was 
everything. So among all the blessings 
of my trip, I must never forget the bless- 
ing in disguise of my illness on that yacht, 
" The Norse King." 

I little thought when I stepped on 
that boat how eventful it would be to 
me ; but, alas ! it was more eventful, in 
a different way, to others whom we left 
behind us on it, when our journey was 
over. For, a few days after we left, it 
103 



A Sunshine Trip 

was wrecked on the rocks, and the passen- 
gers were given only ten minutes to make 
their escape, losing all their luggage and 
the memorabilia of their trip. 

My entrance into the Holy Land, 
lying in the compartment of the car on 
our way from Joppa to Jerusalem, was so 
different from what I had expected ! I 
could hear them talking of all the places 
so familiar to a Bible student ; but I, 
with my sore throat, was unable either to 
speak or lift up my head. Alas ! for all 
my dreams of being really in the Holy 
Land. Still, before leaving for Jerusa- 
lem, I did manage to see a little of the 
ancient Joppa (now called Jaffa). 

What will it matter to us that Peter 

had a vision, if we have none ? The 

question asked by " our Henry," cc Is this 

the place where we shall see visions ? " 

stays with me. If we have the spirit that 
104 



Leaving Cairo for Palestine 

Saint Peter had, we shall see visions. And 
even if old, we shall have our dreams, 
for the promise runs, " Your young men 
shall see visions, and your old men shall 
dream dreams." 



i°5 



THE HOLY LAND 



I DO not wonder that Spurgeon never 
could be persuaded to visit the Holy 
Land. He feared that the sight of so 
much that was far from sacred would jar 
painfully on his cherished impressions of 
the land where our Saviour lived and died. 
I can quite understand him ; the mixture 
of all that is sacred to you with so much 
superstition is a great shock. I wanted 
to get away from the city ; I wanted to 
get to the Mount of Olives and to 
Bethany, for our Lord's ministry was 
almost wholly an out-of-door ministry. 
He taught in the open air ; and I was glad 
there was another spot in Jerusalem be- 
side the one in the Church of the Holy 
106 



The Holy Land 

Sepulchre, where many think our Lord 
was crucified ; they call the spot Gordon's 
Calvary, or Gordon's Golgotha. Gen- 
eral Gordon made a very thorough study 
of this matter, and decided for himself 
that the hill outside the city was Calvary ; 
and very strangely the spot is the shape of 
a skull. The Moslems own it, and have 
enclosed it ; but no kind of building is on 
it. There it stands, — a green hill " out- 
side the city wall." 

The English, at a great cost, have re- 
cently bought the fields that surround it, 
and have put no building on it, I am 
thankful to say. You shrink so from see- 
ing ordinary buildings on spots that are 
sacred. If I lived in Jerusalem that place 
would be Calvary to me ; and I found that 
a number of those I met in Jerusalem go 
to that spot. You can see it from any 

part of the city. As you pass through the 
107 



A Sunshine Trip 

Damascus gate, it seems the most natural 
distance and the way the sad procession 
would have passed. I am so glad I have 
a Calvary I shall love to think of. There 
was no satisfaction to me in the Calvary in- 
side the church. I took comfort in the 
thought that Mary did not kiss the stone 
on which they say the angel sat, after His 
resurrection. She wanted to hear what the 
angel had to say. I did not kiss it, I did 
not kiss any stone; and I am sure Mary was 
too anxious about the risen Christ to stay 
any time in the sepulchre. She wanted 
Him y and so did I. Never did I appreciate 
the fact that I had a loving Christ so much 
as I did among the mummeries and super- 
stitions connected with the life and death of 
our Lord, in the Church of the Holy Sepul- 
chre. I still think if I could have gone 
to the Sea of Galilee and to the Jordan, of 

which I only caught sight from the Mount 
1 08 



The Holy Land 

of Olives, I might have had my dream of 
Palestine realised. But that was denied 
me, so I have my dream. 

But do not think that my visit to the 
Holy Land was a failure. It was not ; I 
saw things that are not seen, and they are 
eternal ; I saw things that will make me 
a more serious woman for the rest of my 
days. I saw that walking over the path 
called the Via Dolorosa, cc the sorrowful 
way," does not necessarily bring you 
nearer the Crucified One. And I saw 
that we can never understand or appreci- 
ate His " sorrowful way " till we have a 
Via Dolorosa, — a sorrowful way ourselves 
to pass. Then, if we are willing, and 
even glad to suffer for Him who suffered 
for us, we are on the path He trod ; and 
there can be no real appreciation even of 
the cross until we are crucified, until we 
know something of the meaning of volun- 
109 



A Sunshine "Trip 

tary self-sacrifice. The religion of Jesus 
is very costly, and that is the reason why 
it will endure, and why His kingdom will 
have no end. 

Never did pride of every sort seem so 
utterly out of place as in the Holy Land. 
I saw a poor Russian peasant throw what 
I still think was his last coin in that cave 
of the Holy Sepulchre. He had kissed 
the stone again and again, and finally threw 
his body upon it. Then he had to leave ; 
but he turned back and threw the little 
silver coin, and disappeared through that 
door, to pass through which you literally 
have to stoop down in order to get into 
the cave. He was followed by a sleek 
ecclesiastic ; and the guide at my side said, 
" These Greek priests fatten on the money 
of these poor Russians." Oh, how much 
rather in that moment would I have been 
that poor peasant than the richest ecclesi- 

IIO 



The Holy Land 

astic ! I thought of a sentence I had 
read : " Simple women have kept the piety 
of the Church fragrant, when famous eccle- 
siastics have trafficked with gold. Gener- 
ous hearts have sheltered a homeless 
Christ in the poor and little children, 
although they wrote no epistles for after 
ages." 

Never did it seem so undesirable to be 
rich as it does to-day. I have my serious 
doubts, from what I read in my New 
Testament, and from what our religion of 
Jesus means, whether any one can be truly 
a follower of Jesus and be what the world 
calls rich. It must be given to His 
suffering humanity, or we are not like 
Jesus Christ; and I do not see how we 
shall be able to stand face to face with 
Him when He says : " I was hungry, 
thirsty, naked, homeless ; what did you 
do for Me ? " And when we ask : " When, 
in 



A Sunshine "Trip 

Lord, did I see you thus ?" He will say : 
" Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of 
these, ye did it not to Me." I shall re- 
turn from the East with some very solemn 
convictions. If the religion of Jesus is 
anything, it is a relationship of love ; and 
there is great danger of our Christianity 
losing its charm, and its place being taken 
by church or vague sentiment, or some- 
thing less than the love that makes the 
soul cry out : — 

" I cannot live if Thou remove, 
For Thou art all in all!" 

Oh, whatever we lose, let us not lose 
our " first love" ! 

You have only to come to the East to 
see the fulfilment of Christ's own words, 
for here are the very spots where the 
churches were to which the Spirit ad- 
dressed the warning word, bidding them 



The Holy Land 

to take heed or the candlestick would be 
removed out of its place. But they did 
not take heed ; they became rich and 
proud, and the candlestick was removed. 
Principles remain ever the same. Is there 
no danger in our American Church ? 
Are we striving to be like the lowly 
Nazarene ? Do we care for the poor and 
warn the rich ? Are we ambitious to live 
on the East Side of the city of New York, 
where we are more needed, perhaps, than 
on the West Side ? I shall never forget 
what the self-sacrificing Dr. Wheeler said 
to me. We were anxious to get away 
from the dirt of Jerusalem, and he said, 
so sweetly, " Won't you help us to make 
it clean?" 

I came nearest to having what I im- 
agined I should have, one afternoon in 
returning from Bethany to Jerusalem. I 
looked off on the country and said : " He 
8 113 



A Sunshine Trip 

looked at these skies and these hills." 
Just then Mr. Clark, who was by my 
side on his donkey, said : " Undoubtedly 
our Lord walked this way every afternoon 
on His way to Bethany to the home of 
Martha and Mary/' and then I had some- 
thing that will remain with me. And then 
on the Mount of Olives I really seemed 
to see Him as He beheld the city and 
wept over it. O Jerusalem ! I am 
sure if I were a Jew, the place of wailing 
by the old wall would be the most natural 
place for me to go. 

As I have wandered among the ruins 
in Jerusalem, how true to the letter the 
words of Jeremiah have been fulfilled. 
" The Lord hath accomplished His fury ; 
He hath poured out His fierce anger, and 
hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath 
devoured the foundations thereof. The 
kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants 
114 



The Holy Land 

of the world, would not have believed that 
the adversary and the enemy should have 
entered into the gates of Jerusalem. " 
The words of the Old Testament as well 
as the words of the New Testament be- 
come such living words after you have 
seen the land, — you exclaim so naturally, 
" How is the gold become dim ! How 
is the most fine gold changed ! The 
stones of the sanctuary are poured out 
in the top of the street. The precious 
sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, 
how are they esteemed as earthen 
pitchers, the work of the hands of the 
potter." 

It is deeply interesting as you walk 
these dirty streets to think how many 
Jerusalems are beneath your feet : no 
less than eight are lying one upon another. 
Some one has reckoned them up for us. 
ist. The city of the Jebusites. 2d. 



A Sunshine Trip 

The city of Solomon. 3d. Of NehemiaL 
4th. Of Herod. 5th. The city as re- 
built by Hadrian. 6th. The early Moslem 
city. 7th. The Crusaders' city. 8th. 
The later Moslem, which still stands 
ingloriously on the wreck and ruin of all 
that preceded it. Forty feet, we are told, 
under the Via Dolorosa are Roman pave- 
ments over which passed the victorious 
legions nearly two thousand years ago. 
Jerusalem will always be sad to me ; and 
I was glad to go out of the city to see the 
Mount of Olives and Bethany and sweet, 
though mournful Gethsemane. 

Dr. Wheeler, of the Medical Mission 
in Jerusalem, told me — and no man has 
such means cf knowing as Dr. Wheeler, 
he has been here so many years — that 
the faith of many of the Jews is simply 
sublime. They hold on to the prom- 
ises made unto the fathers with a grip 
116 



The Holy Land 

that never lets go, and they say He must 
fulfil His promises. All the land will 
be theirs ; and there is a feeling among 
the Mohammedans that the land is not 
theirs and their time is short. The Jews 
are gathering here very fast now, — there 
are three times as many Jews here now as 
there were twelve years ago, — and the 
soil is one of the richest in the world. 
Dr. Wheeler also told me that, at the rate 
of forty cents a day, you can have about 
everything you want to eat. I have never 
seen such cauliflowers in my life ; at least 
four times the size of ours, and only about 
two or three cents apiece. And never 
have I seen such meat displayed, — sheep 
and lambs ready for the market, so white 
and glistening that it was pleasant to look 
at them. And as for oranges, they will 
make home oranges too poor to look at. 
And the grapes in the season are sold for 
117 



A Sunshine Trip 

next to nothing ; such delicious grapes, 
they tell me. 

It seems as if there must be a future 
for Jerusalem, and the question will come, 
Does He not remember the place where He 
suffered and died ? Only one thing has 
reconciled me to the fact that the followers 
of Mahomet have held possession of the 
land, — they have kept it Oriental ; we 
are indebted to them for that. I never 
felt sure that any of the places pointed out 
to me as the exact spots where our Lord 
stood or suffered were where they were said 
to be ; still we are indebted to the Arme- 
nian, Greek, and Latin churches for keep- 
ing sacred so many spots that must be 
near, if not on, the identical places where 
they assure us He stood. But I must be 
true and tell you there is much that is 
disappointing in Jerusalem. I remember 
an hour when I said to myself, " If I could 
118 



The Holy Land 

have gone to Samaria, and seen the well 
(you feel sure of the wells) where Jesus 
sat, when wearied, it seems to me I should 
have been satisfied." But in that hour my 
spirit seemed to hear the calm voice of the 
Spirit saying, " Woman, believe me, the 
hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this 
mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the 
Father. . . . God is a Spirit : and they 
that worship Him must worship Him 
in Spirit and in Truth." And in that 
hour I saw how much better it would be 
to have the well of water in me, than to sit 
on the well and imagine Christ by my 
side. It is the indwelling Christ we 
need ; not even the historic Christ is 
enough. How deep His words were as 
they came to me in Jerusalem where He 
had said, " Nor yet at Jerusalem. . . . 
Whosoever drinketh of the water that I 
shall give him shall never thirst. The 
119 



A Sunshine "Trip 

water that I shall give him shall be in 
him a well of water springing up into 
everlasting life." Yes, that was the well 
I needed, and not the well at Samaria. 



I20 



BETHANY 



CAN it be possible I have seen Bethany ? 
Can it be I have passed over the 
road where His Blessed Feet trod, day 
after day, when, tired with the day's work, 
He wended His way to the house of 
Martha and Mary ? Oh, how indebted we 
come to feel towards those two women, 
when we think how they made it seem 
like home to Him ! Some day we shall 
thank them. We feel the same way to- 
wards that unknown man who put a 
pillow under His head on that fishing- 
boat, while He slept through the storm till 
the cry of human distress awakened him 
(the storm of wind and rain did not). 

On my way from Bethany, I saw the 
lilies of the field on either side of me ; and 

121 



A Sunshine Trip 

as I looked on the blue sky, and thought 
it was the very sky He looked upon, and 
gazed off to the hills at which David 
looked when he said, <c I lift up mine eyes 
to the hills/' at last I realised I was in 
the Holy Land ; and at one spot of that 
road, which I seem to see now, on my 
way back to Jerusalem, I almost felt that 
I should see Him. Oh, it was so near to 
seeing Him ! I had said so often, — 

"1 wish that His hands had been placed on my head, 
That His arm had been thrown around me, 
And that I might have seen His kind look when 
He said, 

Let the little ones come unto me." 

And I was in the very place where He 
said it ; and yet He said, " It is expedient 
for you that I go away." Oh, yes, I knew 
it all ; but it has been expedient that so 
many have gone away, but once in a while 
the heart will cry out, " Oh, for the touch 

122 



Bethany 

of a vanished hand ! " I really wanted to 
see His face that day ; but never mind, 
that is ahead, for it is written, " and they 
shall see His face." Ah, me — the lepers 
were around me, but One who did not 
fear touching them (I did) was not there. 
O the Man of Galilee ! The Man of 
Nazareth — why did they not call Him 
the Child of Bethlehem ? 

After Peter was baptised with the Holy 
Ghost, he called Him "The holy child 
Jesus." Ah, we need a supernatural power 
to enable us to know a supernatural being, 
and such was Jesus Christ. No one knew 
that better than the early disciples did, for 
they said, " No man can call Jesus, Lord, 
but by the Holy Ghost." 

My last look at dear, hallowed Bethany 
was late one afternoon while the sun was 
setting, and then, too, I had my final view 
of the walled city. Shall I ever see it 
123 



A Sunshine 'Trip 

again ? Will it yet be in some future a 
glorious city ? Well, I am glad there is 
a New Jerusalem where the gates are not 
shut at all, for there is no night there. 
To me Jerusalem the golden will have 
a newer meaning after this visit to old 
Jerusalem. 

"For thee, O dear, dear country ! 

Mine eyes their vigils keep ; 
For very love, beholding 

Thy holy name, they weep : 
The mention of thy glory 

Is unction to the breast, 
And medicine in sickness, 

And love, and life, and rest. 

" O sweet and blessed country, 

The home of God's elect ! 
O sweet and blessed country 

That eager hearts expect ! 
Jesus, in mercy bring us 

To that dear land of rest ; 
Who art, with God the Father, 

And Spirit, ever blest." 



124 



THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 



I WAS allowed to go out much sooner 
than I had expected, by my physi- 
cian, the good Dr. Wheeler, whom my 
friend secured for me as soon as we 
reached Jerusalem. She pleaded so hard 
that one of his deaconesses should come 
as nurse, that he consented, though she 
could hardly be spared from the hospital. 
I think if six nurses could have helped 
me, my friend would have had them all 
there. (I shall plead more feelingly for 
the cause of the deaconesses than I could 
have done had I not known the sweet 
ministry of Sister Margery.) And be- 
fore going further, I must tell you of Dr. 
* 25 



A Sunshine Trip 

Wheeler, a medical missionary, whose 
mission is supported by the English 
Church in London. The mission has a 
wonderful hospital in course of building, 
to which Dr. Wheeler is devoting all his 
energies. How strange it seemed that 
a medical missionary should come to me 
in my illness, when almost the last time 
that I spoke before sailing from New 
York was at our Board of Ladies of the 
Medical Missions. And here I was in 
Jerusalem, with a physician that could tell 
me all about the Medical Missionary 
work in Jerusalem ; and as soon as I 
could talk, I was not slow in asking ques- 
tions, you may be sure. I found that he 
was especially devoted to the poor Jews, 
though caring for all who came to the 
hospital, and trying to win the Moslems, 
just by loving kindness ; never speaking 
to them of their faith, only treating them 
126 



The Mount of Olives 

as brothers. The poor things cannot 
understand how the missionaries are will- 
ing to do it without receiving pay ; and 
when they come to ask the missionaries 
why they do it, the opportunity comes to 
speak of Jesus whose religion is love. 

How sure I became while in the East 
of the truth of the old hymn we used 
to sing, — 

" Love only can the conquest win, 
The strength of sin subdue." 

When I spoke to Dr. Wheeler of the 
loss of the spirit in the worship of the 
letter, and the weariness to me of all 
the symbols, he shook his head, as he 
said, "You do not know this Oriental 
mind as I do ; take these away, and you 
take all away from them ; they have n't 
the Western mind; they must have the 
symbols.'' 

127 



A Sunshine Trip 

I was not strong when I set out to visit 
the Mount of Olives ; but Mr. Clark had 
a comfortable chair for me, and I was car- 
ried by two Arabs, and Sister Margery 
was on her donkey on one side of me, 
and Mr. Clark on the other. It was no 
little favour to have Mr. Clark; and I love 
to linger in memory on those hours at the 
Mount of Olives, for I did not have 
another so full of spiritual enjoyment. 
Never shall I forget the moment when 
the Arabs who carried me put their bur- 
den down, and Mr. Clark said, " Look 
back, Mrs. Bottome." As I turned, the 
city was before me, so compact with the 
wall around it. None who have ever 
seen that sight, felt that surprise, will ever 
forget it; and, undoubtedly, our Lord 
had stood there when He looked at the 
city and wept over it. The words came 
back — cc O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou 
128 



The Mount of Olives 

that killest the prophets, and stonest them 
which are sent unto thee, how often would 
I have gathered thy children together, even 
as a hen gathereth her chickens under 
her wings, and ye would not ! Behold, 
your house is left unto you desolate" 
One must be in Jerusalem to fully take 
in the word " desolate/' It is the only 
word. Shall I ever forget that place of 
wailing, where they press their foreheads 
to the remains of the old wall of that once 
beautiful city ! Afterwards, when I found 
myself on the top of Mount Zion and 
recalled the words, " Beautiful for situ- 
ation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount 
Zion," I understood more fully the mean- 
ing of His words, " Behold, your house 
is left unto you desolate." 

It was a memorable hour to me when 
I stood on the platform surrounding the 
lofty minaret marking the place of the 

9 129 



A Sunshine Trip 

Ascension. I was so eager to see all 
the land below that I told Mr. Clark I 
was quite sure I would not mind the 
steep ascent up the iron stairway to the 
top. How glad I was to get where there 
was nothing to disturb one's thoughts ! 
The view from the top of this tower 
is one of the finest in the world. 
Walking around the balcony, it seemed 
as if the whole land were close to me. 
And it was not difficult to imagine that 
little group, with Jesus in the midst of 
them, coming along the road to the spot 
where He would bless them, and in the 
act of blessing be parted from them. 

Only Mr. Clark and Sister Margery 
were with me ; the almost ever-present 
beggars were not there. Mr. Clark knew 
the land, and is a Biblical scholar, and to 
be with him there was to have the " land 
and the book." 

130 



The Mount of Olives 

I would not wish to put myself under 
the care of any company but that of 
Mr. Clark ; and we meant it when we 
said to him, on parting at Jaffa, " Refer 
any party who is thinking of visiting 
Palestine, or any of the countries we 
have visited, to us, and we will give you 
the strongest of testimonials." I look 
back to that hour on the top of the 
minaret as almost the only hour when 
I was not in the presence of a crowd of 
unfortunate beggars, clamouring for back- 
sheesh. I heard that we should be over- 
run with beggars ; but I could not have 
imagined the wretchedness as it actu- 
ally exists, and to give was only to in- 
crease the crowd. Not a sacred spot, 
scarcely, could you see but in the pres- 
ence of the Mohammedans. The sun 
was setting as I was carried down the 
hill, ashamed of being carried where 



A Sunshine "Trip 

He walked; and there seemed a pecu- 
liar meaning in the lines that came to 
my mind : — 

" I blush in all things to abound, the 
servant is above his Lord." The lilies 
of the field, the same He looked at when 
He said, " Behold the lilies ! " were on 
either side of me — " Solomon, in all his 
glory, was not arrayed like one of these." 
The lilies are of the brightest scarlet 
hue ; and I was told that the shade could 
not be obtained by dyes in Solomon's 
time. It was literally true, therefore, that 
Solomon, in all his glory, could not 
match that beautiful shade of colour. 
I saw the Mount of Olives and the 
beautiful lilies for the last time that 
afternoon. But love never forgets, its 
past is ever present, its yesterday is 
always to-day. Love makes every mem- 
ory say, " Lo, I am with you alway, 
132 



The Mount of Olives 

even unto the end of the world." And 
so I join my prayer with another, " Let 
Thy love make the past a present to me, 
let it bring to the gates of my life the 
footsteps of the Son of man, let it make 
my country a Palestine, my family-circle 
a Bethany, my cross a Calvary, and my 
crown an Olivet ! " 



133 



GETHSEMANE 



A GARDEN where an old monk 
gives you flowers, and where you 
see old olive trees ; where you wish the 
old monk would go away and leave you 
there alone ; where you would like to 
sit under the olive trees in the twilight 
and then— Ah! "The light of the 
world cannot reveal the glories of Geth- 
semane. It can disclose the sweat-drops 
and the tears and. the darkness. It 
can reveal the suppliant pouring forth 
His petition with the voice of strong 
crying. It can show that the prayer is 
seemingly unanswered, and the passing 
of the cup denied ; but cannot disclose 
the peace that comes with the cup. 
i34 



Gethsemane 

It cannot detect the angel of strength 
that follows the surrendered will." 

O Gethsemane, what should we do 
without thee ? " Not my will, but Thine 
be done." You see (if you have eyes 
to see) while there, that every rose and 
flower that is handed you, or that you 
may take, you owe all to His agony in 
that garden. It is fitting it should be 
a garden. We owe all our gardens, in- 
side and outside, to the love that only 
" feared " that His strength might not 
hold out till His work for us should be 
finished on the cross. He was heard 
in that He feared, and there was an 
angel sent to strengthen Him. Surely, 
we can say of Gethsemane, as we say 
of Calvary, " Thou art Heaven on 
earth to me, lovely, mournful Calvary." 
When we think of what His " Thy 
will be done " has been to the saints 
i3S 



A Sunshine Trip 

for nearly two thousand years, as they 
have entered their Gethsemane, — and all, 
sooner or later, have had their Geth- 
semane, — you can hear the echo of 
His " Thy will be done " in their 

" Thy will, not mine, O Lord, 
However hard it be ; 99 

and every note of that song we owe to 
His " Thy will be done/' Oh, what an 
opportunity those three disciples lost ! 
Why did they go to sleep ? All their 
after cowardice might not have been if they 
had not lost that opportunity. Maybe 
it is because we do not draw near to the 
suffering Son of God, and enter into the 
fellowship of His sufferings, that this suf- 
fering world is allowed to bear its agony. 
We indulge ourselves, instead of being 
like the angel that strengthened Him. 
Farewell ! sad, but beautiful Gethsemane ! 
136 



BETHLEHEM 



"f\ LITTLE town of Bethlehem." 

Vy All I saw of Bethlehem that I 
shall love to remember was what I saw 
with my spirit eyes the morning I lay in 
my bed at the Howard Hotel in Jerusalem, 
when my nurse, who was at the window 
in the early morning, said, cc Oh, Mrs. 
Bottome, I wish you could see the view 
from this window ; here is the road that 
leads to Bethlehem." I closed my eyes, 
and I saw the road that leads from Bethle- 
hem, thronged with happy children, every 
one of them knowing that Jesus said, 
" Suffer the little children to come unto 
me. . . . And He took them up in His 
arms, put His hands upon them and blessed 
J 37 



A Sunshine Trip 

them." Oh, that road from Bethlehem ! 
The joy of the world comes direct from 
Bethlehem. " Jesus was born in Bethle- 
hem." The angels sang there ; and there 
the Wise Men brought their presents. O 
Spirit of God, preserve from fading the 
dayspring from on high ! let the Spirit 
preserve from setting the star that rose in 
Bethlehem. We need the Spirit to quicken 
our memories. 

In the Holy Land, and especially in 
Bethlehem, did His words come with 
such force into my heart, " The Kingdom 
is within you." My disappointment in 
Bethlehem was complete. It was the only 
rainy day we had while on the trip ; and yet 
we had the sunrise when my nurse stood 
at the window in the early morning, and, 
if I remember correctly, the rain ceased in 
the late afternoon ; but I went to and re- 
turned from Bethlehem in a pouring rain. 
138 



Bethlehem 

I went to the Church of the Nativity, 
where you see the manger. There are 
two altars, one for the Greek Church 
and the other for the Latin Church. One 
church owns the manger, and the other 
the silver star, over which is an altar. 
Standing guard over these two represen- 
tative Christian churches are the armed 
Turkish soldiers, to keep these Christians 
from killing one another ! 

They hate each other so, with a per- 
fect hatred ; and that was Bethlehem ! 
I wanted to get away, as I did so many 
other times, for the spirit was lost in the 
letter. Over the manger hang gold 
and silver lamps ; indeed, here, as in the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the silver 
and gold were everywhere ; but your very 
heart cried out: "Where is the Christ, 
the Incarnate Son of God, whose name is 
Love?" 

i39 



A Sunshine "Trip 

The rain was so great that I could 
only glance at Rachel's tomb. All ven- 
erate her, Mohammedans, Jews, and 
Christians. Poor old Jacob ! If it had 
been a clear day, and I had had time (alas ! 
that commodity was so scarce), I should 
have liked to dream a little while of the 
past at her grave. " Call the child 
Ben-oni ! " There was one thing about 
her tomb, — you felt sure of it ; and that 
was more than you could say of many 
other places. 

Of course, you are expected to stay 
and see the well ; and they told me the 
water was delicious ; David liked it. 
There was also a fascination for me in 
the cave of Adullam. But perhaps I 
had expected too much from seeing 
Bethlehem. Anyway, I shall have no 
pleasant, holy remembrance of it. It 
eases my mind to make this confession. 
140 



Bethlehem 



The Church of the Nativity is almost 
a horror to me. I have a great admira- 
tion for the Empress Helena. When I 
saw her statue afterwards in Rome, I 
greeted it as an old friend ; but I never 
could imagine anything more hollow than 
the services in the Nativity Church. As 
for the choir boys, gazing around and 
turning to look at us, and the selling of 
the wax tapers, I should have thought a 
scourge of small cords not out of place 
just then. As Bethlehem is now, the 
words, " Let us now go even unto Bethle- 
hem," would have no attractive power 
for me. 



141 



THE MOSQUE OF OMAR 



THIS mosque surrounds a rugged piece 
of rock. To the Mohammedan 
this is the most holy place in the world, 
next to Mahomet's tomb. From this 
rock you are told Mahomet ascended to 
heaven. I looked at the rock that tried 
to follow. They told us the angel 
Gabriel came down and held it till 
Mahomet got clear ; they show you the 
finger-marks of Gabriel, for he had all 
he could do to hold the rock down. The 
reason why this spot is so sacred to the 
Jew is that he believes this rock to be 
the Moriah on which Abraham offered 
up Isaac, — the actual spot where the 
sacred Ark rested. 

142 



The Mosque of Omar 

We did not go down into the cave — 
or at least I did not. Perhaps you re- 
member that General Gordon begged to 
be allowed to open the hole in the floor. 
I have read that he was refused. They 
believe it to be the entrance into the 
lower world. Gordon, however, thought 
otherwise, and after excavating in the 
Kedron Valley he came on some conduit 
which apparently ran right up to this 
rock. He at once concluded that this 
opening in the rock was to carry off the 
blood and water of the sacrifices in old 
time. It is fully believed that on this 
rock stood the great brazen altar. 

Underneath this mosque you are told 
that Solomon stabled his horses ; and 
these stables are known as Solomon's. 
Two thousand horses can be cared for 
here. 

There is a walled-up gate that is very 
J 43 



A Sunshine "Trip 

interesting. It is called " The Golden 
Gate." The Mohammedans have a 
legend concerning it. The tradition is that 
the conquerors of Zion will enter through 
this gate, and the power in Jerusalem will 
pass from the Moslem to the Jews. 
Therefore the gate is walled up that 
entrance may be impossible. 

The Jew believes the tradition, and 
quietly waits for the time when the Golden 
Gate shall be thrown open for the Mes- 
siah to enter and reign over His people. 
I hope it may be, but I wish they would 
open their hearts to Him now. Yet I 
cannot help thinking He loves the city 
where He worked and suffered and died ; 
and here, as in other places, especially on 
the Mount of Olives, it does seem to me 
He will yet stand, and the feet marked 
with the print of the nails will yet press 
this soil. 

144 



WHAT I MISSED 



IT is not always best to speak or write 
of what we have missed in life ; it 
is so much better to dwell on what we 
have not missed. But I must tell you, 
because you will ask me, what I missed 
particularly. First, Nazareth, where " He 
was brought up," and where I had so 
much anticipated going. For it had 
seemed to me the beautiful scene in our 
New Testament would be more precious 
still, if I could have imagined His voice 
on the very spot (if that could be) where 
He stood up and read the prophecy con- 
cerning Himself — cc The Spirit of the 
Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed 

me to preach the Gospel to the poor ; to 
io I45 



A Sunshine Trip 

bind up the broken-hearted ... to set at 
liberty them that are bruised, to preach the 
acceptable year of the Lord." But I did 
not see Nazareth. Now what can I do, 
having missed it ? Well, it seems to me 
I must use my imagination, and in spirit 
listen to the words that can never grow 
old, because always needed. And this 
may be a comfort to some of you who 
will never visit the Holy Land. 

Then, I also missed the Sea of Galilee. 
This was a still greater loss to me, for I 
had dreamed of sitting by the sea, or the 
lake, and looking at the same kind of 
boats in which He so often sat, and the 
fishing smacks, those which one sees to- 
day. He had said such wonderful things ; 
but missing it has taught me we might 
associate Him with every sea and every 
lake if we only would ; for all lakes and 
rivers and seas are His, and we might so 
146 



What I Missed 

often see His form on the sea in imagina- 
tion. It has been said, "Faith has still its 
Olivet, and love its Galilee, ,, and, as I 
write, one place after another comes up 
that I had so fully expected to see, but 
missed. 

I did not see the Damascus road, where 
a light above the brightness of the sun 
shone on Saint Paul and he heard the 
words, " Saul, Saul, why persecutest 
thou me ? " Ah, he never forgot those 
words, / am Jesus. I do not know 
how intensified the story would have been 
if I had gone to Damascus, but I know 
that I have, since I returned, read all 
these incidents in my New Testament 
with increasing interest; and yet I must 
be honest and say that in spiritual travel, 
— spiritual light that illuminates the truths 
of our Bibles to us can only come in com- 
panionship with the Holy Spirit, — we 
147 



A Sunshine Trip 

may stand on the most sacred spots in 
the world, and all be common soil to us ; 
but with the Spirit in us, whether we step 
on the Holy Land or not, all will be holy 
ground to us. No one knows better than 
I do to-day how much or how little all 
these sacred places may be to us : " We 
perceive as we are." 

And yet I can confess to the disappoint- 
ment in missing the overland trip ; though 
now I can see how unwise it would have 
been to have attempted it when the 
Bedouin tribes were so restless, and there 
was such a spirit of uneasiness through all 
the East. For though these Bedouin 
tribes claim to be direct descendants of 
Abraham, they are natural born robbers, 
and it is always unsafe for any one to pass 
through their country unguarded ; and 
though mounted Turkish soldiers were to 
be our escort, we did not feel by any 
148 



What I Missed 

means sure of them. " Turkish soldiers " 
had not a very restful sound to us. We 
knew these Bedouin tribes were after 
money ; for the head of each tribe is legally 
required to pay the Sultan one Turkish 
pound, nearly five dollars, a year. In this 
way only can they be exempt from mili- 
tary duty. Early in May, near the time 
we expected to be there, a party was visit- 
ing the Jordan and Dead Sea with the 
usual guard. Four of the number sepa- 
rated from the others ; and in less than two 
hours they were seized, robbed of their 
horses, money, and clothing, and a most 
pitiable lot they were when they reached 
their tents after nightfall. 

We valued our lives too highly to 
take the risk of the tent life that had. 
appeared so fascinating to us in antic- 
ipation. So, when disappointed, I feel 
I must do as I have done so many 
149 



A Sunshine 'Trip 

times in my life, — organise victory out 
of defeat. But the hardest part was 
to have to disappoint others. When I 
thought of the King's Daughters who 
wrote me from Smyrna, saying, "We 
are so sad here in the East, and we feel 
your coming will give us hope," and 
when I thought of the two hundred 
young girls who were to have a holiday 
when I should arrive at Beyroot, the dis- 
appointment was keener still. 

Yet I said to myself, surely He is guid- 
ing me. Did I not ask for guidance ; did 
I not say as one of old said, in the very 
land I had gone to see, " If Thy presence 
go not with me, carry me not up hence " ? 
Often God has purposes to work out 
through our disappointments that are too 
deep for us to see at the time, and I could 
not forget that all that others had received 
from me in the past that had been of any 
i5° 



What I Missed 

benefit to them had come from my poverty, 
never from my riches ; so I said, it may 
be that others will in some way be en- 
riched by what I have missed, rather than 
by what I had hoped to have. Any way, 
the blessed " all things " remain, and the 
" all things " take in what we have missed. 

Of course, I determined to make the 
most of what remained, and what you do 
see in the Holy Land somehow never 
leaves you. It is a long way to the Orient, 
but I would not hesitate to go again, if 
my Guide led me there. And indeed 
what an education it is to have such a 
courier with you, as we had in Mr. Val- 
entine, and how we vexed him by staying 
so short a time in each place ! He felt all 
the time what we were missing ; he knew 
everything, and was ready to tell us what 
we did not know : and his soul was vexed ; 
I could see it from day to day. But his 
151 



A Sunshine Trip 

business was to take care of us, to guide us, 
and he did it well. He illustrated the 
sweet words, " He careth for you." He 
did not want us to look after anything, 
not even our wraps, or our little hand- 
bags. When we entered a car, we were 
sure to find everything safely put up 
above us or at our side. How proud he 
was of " the boy " of our party ! He felt 
he owned us all. To be sure, it took us 
a little time to get used to being owned ; 
but where would we have been without 
him ? He knew all the languages we did 
not know ; and before we were through, we 
found he was the man of consequence, for 
the best hotels knew him. I am sure, if 
I should take the trip again, I should 
look out for Mr. Clark and the courier, 
Mr. Valentine, he provided for us. 

And now the question is, Shall I take in 
the lesson that I have a Guide — one who 
152 



What I Missed 



wishes to take care of everything for me — 
who is constantly preparing places for me 
so that I always go into a prepared place ? 
To realise this always would be worth a 
trip to the Orient. 



r S3 



SOMETHING ELSE I MISSED 



I HAVE just read a letter sent to one 
of our party from Mr. R , who 

left us at Jaffa to visit Constantinople 
and Athens. Both were in our itinerary, 
but the distance by boat between Jaffa 
and Constantinople was so great, and the 
younger ones of our party were so tired 
of boats, and as the East had not been 
so fascinating to them as to us older 
ones, and they were eager to reach the 
Continent, we took our steamer for 
Brindisi. Mr. R. writes from Beyroot. 
" When I arrived at the American (Presby- 
terian) Mission I was more than pleased. 
The grounds are beautifully laid out, the 
buildings are splendid, and the stone 

m 



Something Else I Missed 

church is the best I have seen in the 
East. They have four hundred pupils 
of both sexes. Dr. and Mrs. Bliss, the 
heads of the institution, have lived here 
forty years. The Doctor was absent, but 
we saw the charming Mrs. Bliss in her 
beautiful home. They have been won- 
derfully successful in establishing a grand 
work. Mr. William E. Dodge and Mr. 
Morris K. Jesup, of New York, are two 
of the principal trustees and contributors. 
Another Mr. Jesup is our American 
Minister, or Consul General, here. They 
were all disappointed when I told them 
that Mrs. Bottome had gone back via 
Alexandria, and would not visit them. 
They had been expecting her ; and Mr. 
Jesup had promised the two hundred 
young ladies in the school a half holiday 
when Mrs. Bottome arrived, and they 
were to have had an afternoon tea, and 
*S5 



A Sunshine Trip 

to have given her a reception. They had 
no idea that she had been quarantined 
in their harbour." 

I am not apt to take so much space 
telling what I have missed ; but I want 
these dear friends who are passing through 
so much trial in that disturbed land to 
know that I would have made every effort 
in my power to have reached them, if I 
had known two hundred dear girls were 
looking for me. While quarantined at 
Beyroot, I did think of the institution, and 
of the noble work they were doing, and 
said to myself how sorry Mrs. William 
E. Dodge will be when I return and tell 
her I did not see the institution to which 
she has been, and to which she is, so 
devoted. " What I missed " is very sug- 
gestive. We are always missing some- 
thing, because life is made up of choices. 
We must leave something to have any- 
156 



Something Else I Missed 

thing ; and we often, I fear, leave some- 
thing for that which proves to be less than 
nothing. How much we need wisdom, 
how much we should ask for it, that we 
may not miss the most important things ! 



iS7 



A PLEASANT MORNING IN JAFFA 



N our return from Jerusalem to 



Jaffa, waiting for the Austrian 
steamer to take us to Port Said, I remem- 
bered that our Greek dragoman had 



so I asked him where I should find it. 
As I intended taking a donkey ride, he 
offered to walk beside me and show me. 
We went through the town, finding it 
more crowded than ever, as it was a feast- 
day, — the long fast of the Ramazan had 
just ended. I remembered being in a 
mosque in Cairo when Lent commenced. 
All is gaiety now ; the women and little 
girls have on their best gowns, and all 




spoken of an English school in Jaffa, 



158 



A Pleasant Morning in Jaffa 

look happy. As we entered the gate 
leading to the large stone house, I noticed 
a white marble slab in the wall at the side 
of the door, and on it the words, Isaiah 
liv. 10. The history of it was given me 
just before leaving. 

I was ushered into the school by one 
of the teachers, a lovely-looking girl, who 
took me into a room where the larger 
girls were. They all stood while I said 
a few words to them ; they were exceed- 
ingly bright-looking, and were a mixture 
of Jewesses, Moslems, and Christians. 
After speaking to the different classes in 
different rooms, Miss Walker-Arnott, 
the founder of this school, and the one 
who has carried on the Tabitha Mission 
in Jaffa, introduced herself to me, and 
took me into the drawing-room for a little 
chat. It was then I learned that she had 
come here alone to Jaffa, and had built 
T 59 



A Sunshine Trip 

this large house with her private fortune. 
She was under no society, and had not 
had a commission till of late years. The 
children she gathered around her then, 
are her teachers now ; and it was her am- 
bition to educate, and then have them in 
turn educate others. I learned that there 
were a Home, or boarding-school ; three 
schools in town ; a Sunday-School in the 
Home, for scholars from the three town 
schools ; a meeting for women in the 
town ; a class meeting for men in the 
Home ; and a Bible woman visiting in 
the town. 

There are a number of native assist- 
ants, trained in the Institution, and on 
the roll are the names of one hundred and 
seventy children of different faiths ; but 
I noticed this morning when I repeated the 
words of Jesus, " Suffer the little children 
to come unto Me," they all repeated it 
160 



A Pleasant Morning in Jaffa 

with me. Miss Arnott told me that the 
work among the Moslem women had 
been particularly encouraging. The chil- 
dren were taught to think and judge and 
act, and are incited to pass that highest 
standard which is such a purely Western 
importation in the East, namely, faithful- 
ness and veracity. A sweet spirit per- 
vaded the house, a something that made 
you think it might be Bethany, where 
Jesus would be sure to come. I was so 
glad she gave me the history of the 
marble plate in the wall. She said that 
after the wall was completed and the 
foundations all securely laid, persecution 
began. One day she was nearly worn 
out; she seemed on the edge of com- 
pletely breaking down ; and at last felt 
so discouraged that she laid down on a 
lounge and realised that all the energy, 
strength, and enthusiasm that had kept 
ii 161 



A Sunshine Trip 

her going had really left her. She had 
laid her fortune and life down, and had 
not accomplished the work she had under- 
taken to do. Just at that moment one of 
her trusty workmen came in and asked 
her if she knew who had written on the 
wall outside. She asked what was written, 
and the answer was just this : Isaiah 
liv. 10. She opened her Bible and read: 
" For the mountains shall depart, and the 
hills be removed ; but My kindness shall 
not depart from thee, neither shall the 
covenant of My peace be removed, saith 
the Lord that hath mercy on thee." 

She told me that when she read it, new 
strength came to her, she rose from the 
lounge and was well again. So she kept 
the words that were written with char- 
coal on the stone as long as she could, 
then had them cut in a plate. She never 
knew who wrote them, but imagined 
162 



A Pleasant Morning in Jaffa 

that some travellers had pitched their tents 
in the night, and seeing this unfinished 
building, just wrote the text with a bit of 
charcoal. The work they did they never 
knew. 

I really needed to get a glimpse of 
something real, and am glad I have the 
picture of the Tabitha School to hang up 
on the walls of memory. I have been so 
sick of the sights and sounds that have 
greeted me in the past in the Holy Land. 
Oh, to have sat down by the Lake of 
Galilee ; and yet, knowing as I do, how 
unlike it is to what you imagined it would 
be, it is far better to be with Him on 
every lake in spirit. That, perhaps, is 
the reason He said, " It is expedient for 
you that I go away," then " I will be 
with you always and everywhere." Oh, 
yes, He is our Holy Land ! The Prom- 
ised Land ! Life itself is only a symbol, 
163 



A Sunshine Trip 

a figure of the true. So I will take up 
the little refrain that has helped me so 
much. 

" Where He may lead I '11 follow, 
My trust in Him repose, 
And every hour in perfect peace, 
I '11 sing He knows ! " 



164 



NAPLES 



ON the morning of the 24th of March 
we stepped from our steamer (which 
we took at Alexandria) on to the conti- 
nent of Europe at Brindisi. How many 
times at important events of my life the 
word has come with a new force : " I 
beseech you, by the mercies of God, that 
ye present your bodies a living sacrifice " ! 
And I felt that morning that the old 
hymn of my childhood was the appropriate 
one for me, — 

" Thy ransomed servant, I 

Restore to Thee thine own, 
And from this moment live or die, 
To serve my God alone." 

It took us all day to reach Naples. 
As we approached the city I saw the 
165 



A Sunshine "Trip 

fires from Mount Vesuvius. I must 
confess I did not feel as if I wished to 
go very near them. Until very recently 
Cook's Cable Railway has been very 
convenient for those who have wished to 
go to the top ; but of late the eruptions 
have been uncommonly frequent, and 
the road completely blocked by the 
lava. It is now a very toilsome trip, if 
not a dangerous one, and I learned a 
lesson on the Nile I do not intend to 
forget. I took risks in the excessive 
heat that I would not take again, so I 
decided to content myself with " looking 
up " without going up. Naples has in- 
terested me exceedingly. I find it a much 
larger city than I had anticipated. It 
is considered the most beautifully situated 
city in Europe. The bay is a dream of 
beauty ; one American enthusiast said, 

" See Naples and die." I should rather 
166 



Naples 

say, "After seeing it, what must the pure 
river of water of life be ? " Earth is so 
shadowed, The first thing I heard this 
morning was a band of music, and, 
looking out of my window, I saw the fresh 
troops marching to the scene of war. 
Three thousand left yesterday. As I 
thought of all the sorrow of so many 
mothers at parting with their sons, never to 
see them, perhaps, again, the lines of Mrs. 
Browning came so forcibly to my mind, — 

"Dead! . . . 
Both! both my boys ! If . . . 

You want a great song for your Italy free, 
Let none look at me !" 

The contrasts here, as everywhere, are 
so sharp between great poverty and ex- 
treme riches ! The horses are uncom- 
monly fine. I think I never saw so 
many beautiful horses in so short a space 
of time as I saw on the afternoon we 
167 



A Sunshine Trip 

drove around the city ; but the faces of 
the poor are pathetic, and their press- 
ing cry for help meets you everywhere. 
It does seem as if when you get where 
nature is the most beautiful, man is in 
the extremest need. What will it be to 
see a city, " so holy and clean no sorrow 
can breathe in the air" ! When poverty 
and filth was on every side of me in 
Jerusalem, how much to me was the 
anticipation of " Jerusalem the golden " ! 
It is not here. 

We were relieved on entering Naples 
not to hear the wild voices in Arabic; and 
the absence of the Mohammedan loose 
dress was a comfort. But, alas, we did 
not escape sights and sounds that made 
us shut our eyes ! We have been en- 
abled to do much more than we possibly 
could have done through all the trip by 
riding instead of walking. Nothing sur- 
168 



Naples 

prises an Italian more than people walk- 
ing when they could ride ; they detest 
walking. I certainly have an affinity with 
them in that respect. After all, we are 
the same people travelling that we are at 
home. 

It was a source of much amusement 
that I took a nap one afternoon in a tomb. 
I am more indebted to that nap, perhaps, 
than I shall ever know. We had been 
exploring the tombs at Thebes, and having 
ridden many miles on our donkeys, we 
were not aware how hot the sun was. 
When we came out of the tomb, just at 
the entrance, where we were sheltered, our 
dragoman had spread a rug, and had pre- 
pared for us a very nice lunch. When 
luncheon was finished, and dishes and 
cloth were removed, the rug looked so 
tempting that I threw myself down and 
slept three quarters of an hour, I am 
169 



A Sunshine Trip 

told. That sleep saved me, for I was the 
only one that did not succumb to the heat 
on the return to the boat. So I was very- 
glad I did take my usual nap, although in 
a tomb. 



170 



POMPEII 



AMONG the fascinating novels of 
my girlhood was " The Last Days 
of Pompeii," and so I was all ready for 
the trip to Pompeii our second day in 
Naples. We started early in the morning, 
and found, when we reached the railway 
station, that there had been a change in 
the time-table since the day before, and 
our train had gone. There was nothing 
to do but to take carriages ; but we 
anticipated a delightful ride over a country 
road, and supposed we should be in sight 
of the beautiful bay. Well, we did n't 
have what we expected ; but that is not 
an uncommon thing in life. We took 
the long ride over the stony pavements 

all the way to Pompeii. We did see new 
171 



A Sunshine Trip 

sights ; we saw more macaroni than we shall 
ever see again, hanging like curtains on 
the sidewalk, and we certainly saw enough 
faded glory to last us a long time. You 
could see that all the houses of the poor 
had once been dwellings of the wealthy ; 
and not a house, scarcely, without a 
balcony at every window ! Most of them 
were in different shades of the colours so 
peculiar to Naples, — a salmon pink, or 
white, or dark brown, — and on many of 
the houses were faded paintings. 

I was pleasantly disappointed in the 
ruins. The wall decorations lend a pecu- 
liar charm. The lower part of the col- 
urns are covered with painted stucco. The 
colours I was not prepared for, and they 
were very pleasant to see. The red and 
yellow seem appropriate in this brilliant 
Southern sun. Of course the best of 

everything that has been discovered has 
172 



Pompeii 

been taken to the remarkable Museum 
in Naples. 

As I was carried through what was once 
a theatre, the House of Commerce, tem- 
ples and colonnades, I had a good oppor- 
tunity to reflect and learn lessons that I 
fear I should not have learned if I had 
been tired by walking. It seemed so won- 
derful that this was the ancient city men- 
tioned in history three hundred and ten 
years before Christ, and which fifty-nine 
years after the birth of Christ was the 
favourite resort of the wealthier class. In 
the year 63, Mount Vesuvius, which had 
been quiet for centuries, became active, 
and a great earthquake destroyed a good 
part of the beautiful city. But they went 
right to work, rebuilding in the Roman 
style, and when the final catastrophe 
occurred in 79, much was unfinished. I 
looked at a row of columns that were in 
i73 



A Sunshine "Trip 

course of building when all was buried ; 
and of all the wonders of excavation I 
have seen in this trip, in some respects 
this seemed the most wonderful. To 
think that all remained completely buried 
for fifteen centuries ! and we saw the mar- 
vellous statuary in the Museum at Naples, 
and the bronzes that are the wonder of the 

world ! One of our party, Mrs. G , 

was particularly anxious to see the kitchen 
utensils that had been unearthed, and when 
one thinks that Pompeii represents almost 
the only source of our acquaintance with 
ancient and domestic life, we have a 
right to be interested in the kitchen uten- 
sils. Excavations ! There is a peculiar 
charm in the word to me ; buried treas- 
ures ! Much is buried. I think I shall 
sing the old song with a new meaning, — 

" Touched by a human heart, 
Wakened by kindness, 
174 



Pompeii 

Chords that were broken 
Will vibrate once more." 

It might help us in our work to think 
that every kind word and kind act is help- 
ing to remove the rubbish that encases 
the lost image. I remember standing 
and watching, while in a tomb in Egypt, 
as the soil was removed ; and all at once 
a treasure was in sight. Passing along, 
you could see here and there images peep- 
ing out of the great wall, — valuable dis- 
coveries that had just been made, — and 
nothing I had ever seen was like these 
buried treasures that had at last come to 
light. Oh, if we could take courage when 
working, excavating, trying to find the 
buried soul, and when at last the tear 
starts, feel that the treasure is in view ! 
The soul is there! 

Again and again, while in the East, I 
thought of our own dreadful East Side, 
i75 



A Sunshine Trip 

where there is so much of want. Thank 
God for those who are willing to do the 
work of excavating ! Some day a great 
joy will come to those who look on the 
beautiful soul, — not a statue in a museum, 
but a beautiful spirit in the Father's 
house. Will not the joy pay for all the 
toil, as memory takes them back to the 
days when they were engaged in the work 
of unearthing, bringing to light and joy, 
God's buried treasures ? 



176 



ROME 




ANON FARRAR says it was the 



Christ in Rome, then the centre of civili- 
sation ; but if he had had his dream ful- 
filled, we might not have had his cc letters 
from Rome." It is an interesting study, 
to say the least, to think how much 
poorer this world would be to-day if some 
people had had that of which they dreamed 
and for which they longed. Think of 
what an inspiration the world would have 
lost if it could not have had imagined that 
noblest of men sitting in his hired house 
chained to a Roman soldier, writing letters 
that will live in character long after all that 
made Rome the imperial city shall have 



dream of Saint Paul's life to preach 



12 



A Sunshine Trip 

crumbled into dust ! How much greater 
is Saint Paul than Rome ! This thought 
never left me while sight-seeing in what 
is called (but is not) " the eternal city." 

The two great objects of interest to me, 
and those which I had wanted to see from 
a child, were St. Peter's Church and the 
Colosseum. If I had stayed a month in 
Rome, I should have wanted to visit St. 
Peters every day, — the grandest edifice 
ever built by man, painted against God's 
loveliest sky, as Hawthorne speaks of it. 
The approach to the cathedral is the 
piazza of St. Peter's, which is partly sur- 
rounded by curved colonnades. In the 
centre of the piazza is the great obelisk 
brought from the Egyptian Heliopolis. 
I have read that during the erection of 
this monument, in 1586, the engineer 
neglected to calculate on the stretching of 

the ropes, and the great shaft hung sus- 
178 



Rome 



pended in the air, and because of the strain 
on the ropes it could not be placed in 
position, until a sailor workman shouted, 
" Pour water on the ropes." His sug- 
gestion was promptly acted upon, and the 
five hundred tons of rock came safely into 
place. The sailor was not punished by 
the death promised to the first of the eight 
hundred workmen who should speak at 
that critical moment, but was rewarded 
with the privilege of furnishing the palm 
branches for St, Peter's on Palm Sunday. 

I was not disappointed in St. Peters, 
though it was so unlike what I had ex- 
pected. There is no "dim religious light" 
there. The interior is very light, the 
windows being of plain glass. Many mag- 
nificent marble columns that were taken 
from the pagan temples stand about the 
thirty beautiful altars and the monuments 
in the church. Of course I stood by the 
179 



A Sunshine Trip 

famous iron statue of Saint Peter. The 
great toe of this statue is indeed being 
worn away by the constant kissing. Our 
courier stood by my side, and of course 
kissed the bronze toe, and I saw that he 
noticed I did not, so I said to him, " I too 
love Saint Peter, and while standing here 
I have offered a little prayer that I might 
have the love he had when Jesus said to 
him, c Feed my lambs/ " In that moment 
I thought of the many lambs that need 
the affection that the faithful seem to give 
to Saint Peter. I should have been very 
glad to see the Pope, and if he had not 
been so feeble, we probably should have 
been granted an interview, or, as we 
were in the church on Palm Sunday, we 
might have seen him there ; but he was 
extremely feeble at that time. 

You have read better descriptions of 
the wonderful church than I can give you. 
1 80 



Rome 



I could write a book on what I saw, and 
did not see, in St. Peters and the Vatican, 
and yet, strangely, what remains most 
vividly before my mind is what you might 
not have noticed. In one of the many 
chapels in the church there was a service 
on the day before Palm Sunday, where 
we saw a number of cardinals, and where 
the service was very imposing. But noth- 
ing impressed me like the figure of a 
woman in deep mourning as she knelt by 
one of the pillars. The whole service was 
in a language I could not understand. All 
the rich colours of the robes of the priests 
and cardinals, all the odour of the incense 
from swinging censers, faded from my 
senses as I gazed on that woman who was 
a figure, a symbol, to me of the broken 
hearts of all womankind. She never 
moved during the time we were in that 
chapel, and I seemed to see only that 
181 



A Sunshine "Trip 

woman and the unseen man of Nazareth, 
who said, " He hath sent me to bind up 
the broken-hearted." Oh, how my soul 
turned away in that hour from everything 
to the personal Christ, who can be revealed 
to us only by the Holy Spirit ! 

I need to see the things that are not 
seen, for they only are eternal. I have felt 
this all the time I have been sight-seeing, 
and if I had not come for instruction, I 
should have found, as many who travel for 
mere pleasure find, that it is a weariness to 
the flesh, and they wish they were at home. 
I heard a young girl once say : " I think 
this is unendurable, this monotonous life 
on the sea day after day, unless one is in 
love " ; and I quite agreed with her, but 
I felt like singing, "Jesus, lover of my 
soul." Oh, what a difference companion- 
ship makes, what a difference it has made 
to me ! How much more the wonders of 
182 



Rome 



art have been to me after praying, <c Show 
me what You want me to see, and let me 
see the meaning of things, not the mere 
things " ! 

It seems to me one cannot but be im- 
pressed here in Rome that it is suffering 
love which is crowned. Saint Peter and 
Saint Paul were martyrs ; they lived and 
they died for the good of others ; and that 
is the reason they are living in stone, living 
in the heart of humanity to-day. The 
cross, the symbol of this self-sacrifice, is 
everywhere. You are shown the very 
chain — the rude iron chain — they bound 
Saint Peter with. It is now in a golden case. 
Strange, is n't it, that many who call them- 
selves Christians can see the symbol of the 
cross everywhere and not say, — 

" Must Jesus bear the cross alone, 
And all the world go free ? ' ' 

But He only knows how many are bearing 
183 



A Sunshine 'Trip 

the cross He has laid upon them. Saint 
Peter's chains are on exhibition, but who 
can tell what chains are worn by the saints 
that earth does not recognise. Poverty 
is a chain. I shrink from mentioning 
other chains so many are wearing to-day ; 
but He knows His martyrs in every age. 

I saw, while standing within the walls of 
the great Colosseum, what I saw among the 
ruins of Pompeii, and in the tombs of 
the kings on the Nile, that there comes 
an end to all human greatness. " Pride 
goeth before destruction, and a haughty 
spirit before a fall." I learned this by 
heart when I was a girl, and history, the 
history of nations, the history of individ- 
uals, proves the truth of the saying my 
mother repeated to me so often, " Pride 
will have a fall." Ruins ! Ruins ! A 
great part of this trip has been made up 
of seeing ruins. A gentleman well known 
184 



Rome 

in New York City said to me the other 
day, " What a pity that theological stu- 
dents could not go to Jerusalem to finish 
their studies and see the followers of the 
different religions of the world before they 
are let loose upon the people to preach ! " 
I replied, "There is just such a theo- 
logical school now being built by a very 
wealthy Englishman in Jerusalem." I 
would add that it is a pity that every 
preacher of righteousness could not make 
the trip I have made to see y not merely 
read y the truth that " God only is great." 

How poor pride looked compared with 
humility, when in the city of Rome I 
thought of Nero and Paul and compared 
the two characters ! How grand Moses 
looked in Egypt compared with Rameses 
the Great ! How glad he is now that he 
chose rather " to suffer affliction with the 
people of God than to enjoy the pleasures 



A Sunshine Trip 

of sin for a season," and the season so 
short ! The body, or mummy, of Rameses 
the Second is on exhibition in the Museum 
of Cairo, but not the body of Moses. The 
last sight we caught of his body was on 
the Mount of Transfiguration. A glori- 
ous body ! Oh, yes, righteousness pays in 
every age. I looked at the marble statue 
of Moses and Michael Angelo here in 
Rome a few days ago, and did not wonder 
the artist struck it with a hammer after he 
finished it, and said, " Why don't you 
speak ? " Ah, Moses had spoken, and 
that was the reason he had become the 
dream of poets and artists. There are 
some people that have n't life enough in 
them while living to ever breathe in mar- 
ble after they are gone. Moses led the 
children of Israel out of the land of bond- 
age ; he was God's servant, and so never 
died. 

186 



Rome 



Thank God, we have some leaders to- 
day, though not many, who are willing, 
after being learned in all the art of the 
schools and having prospects like Moses 
had, to turn their backs on all, and instead 
lead a life of utter self-effacement. The 
cross is everywhere, but not the spirit of 
it. And yet I am sure that He who looks 
at the heart knows the lives of many 
whose names will not be heralded on earth, 
but who are marked with the cross and 
who know the meaning of Saint Paul's 
words : " I am crucified with Christ : 
nevertheless, I live ; . . . and the life that 
I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith 
of the Son of God, who loved me, and 
gave Himself for me." 

All the weary travel to reach this Mecca 
will more than pay, if we reach Him who 
is the real Mecca, for we can stay with 
Him, and do not have to turn back to 
187 



A Sunshine 'Trip 



go over the dusty road again, as I saw 
so many pilgrims do. When Christ is 
reached, there is a sense in which our 
travelling days are o'er : — 

" God is our home, and in that state 
We cannot so far separate 
As not to make the distant near 
And know the loved are always here." 



188 



THE COLOSSEUM 



THIS is a ruin you could never tire 
of seeing. Think of eighty-seven 
thousand spectators being accommodated 
on the marble seats, and fifteen thousand 
more who could stand and witness the 
games ! We looked at the four tiers of 
seats and imagined the first tier occupied 
by the Emperor, the senators, and the 
rest of the 'elite> including the vestal vir- 
gins. The second tier was reserved for 
the knights and nobles. Then came 
room for the plebeians. The top gallery, 
we are told, was used by the sailors em- 
ployed in the manipulation of the im- 
mense awning that shaded the spectators 
and the men employed in showering per- 
189 



A Sunshine "Trip 

fumed water on those beneath. Think of 
the dedication of the Colosseum being 
celebrated with games which lasted one 
hundred days, and during which time ten 
thousand men and five thousand wild 
beasts were slain on its arena ; and we 
stood and looked down on that arena ! I 
thought of the thousands and thousands 
of Christians who perished there. I must 
say that the painful association that was 
so connected with that ruin of the most 
wonderful edifice ever erected took from 
me the enjoyment I would otherwise 
have had. 

I did not see it by moonlight. That 
would be a sight ! But we had been 
cautioned not to visit it at night unless 
we wanted to risk getting malaria ; and we 
were not sentimental enough to run any 
risk. I had known of friends who had 
never recovered from the effects of dis- 
190 



The Colosseum 

ease they had taken at Rome ; and all 
through our trip we had been exceed- 
ingly careful. I did not forget what a 
friend of mine said to me just before 
leaving. In speaking of a friend who 
travelled with her in the East, she said 
she has never been the same woman phys- 
ically since her trip to the East. We 
wanted to return well, and so we did very 
little at night during the entire trip. 
We are told that this wonderful Colos- 
seum, now in ruins, did not fall with 
decay. Had it been left untouched by 
the bandits, who ruined so many of 
Rome's greatest monuments, it would 
have remained intact probably to this 
day. It was regarded as a sort of mine, 
or quarry, from which was taken the 
material to build the palaces and the 
smaller buildings. One half of the only 

wall is gone, and but two thirds of the 
191 



A Sunshine Trip 

original Colosseum remains. You can 
form an idea of its size by the value of 
the material yet standing, since, as shown 
by a noted architect, the mere stone, 
brick, and marble in the ruins are worth 
$1,250,000. One can see the under- 
ground passage and cells in which were 
kept the condemned victims of the arena, 
both man and beast. Alas, for the 
human nature that could enjoy the sight 
of the flowing blood ! To me, it is sim- 
ply savage human nature. Thank God, a 
better day has dawned ! Nothing shows 
more conclusively to me the fact that man 
is only a ruin of the image that God made 
him, than all that is suggested by a visit 
to the Colosseum at Rome. 



192 



VENICE 



BEAUTIFUL Venice! There is no 
city like it. To float in a gon- 
dola on a moonlight night, and listen 
to the music, is an experience not to be 
forgotten. Now I am back in Venice 
and on the Grand Canal, and looking at 
the old palaces on either side that have 
such a fascination for me. " The canal 
is like an c S ■ in shape, and cuts the city 
in two nearly equal parts. It is two 
miles long and about one hundred and 
eighty feet wide, except at the narrow- 
est places, where the famous Rialto 
crosses it. This bridge of perhaps one 
hundred feet span was built in 1588- 

159 1. It is one graceful arch of Italian 
13 193 



A Sunshine Trip 

marble, on which are twenty-four shops, 
and three passage-ways for pedestrians. 
There are but three other bridges over 
this canal, and they are of iron. The 
great building of Venice is St. Mark's 
Cathedral, — some one calls it the c Golden 
Cavern ' ; it is incrusted with precious 
stones, at once splendid and sombre, 
sparkling and mysterious. It is the rich- 
est cathedral in its adornments in the 
world. It is a partial copy of St. Sofia 

in Constantinople, golden-roofed, with 
i 

great marble statues outlined against the 

five domes of the church. The sun from 

this consummation of the sublime in 

Oriental and Venetian architecture brings 

out the most exquisite colouring, and 

when the sky is glowing (as it can only 

glow in Venice) the effect is magnificent. 

Above the central portal are the four 

gilded horses that in 1204 were brought 
194 



Venice 



from Constantinople. Napoleon stole 
them, and they were taken to Paris 
in 1797, as trophies of war. The 
horses were returned in 18 15, and 
now grace the portal as of old. The 
interior of the old church is as won- 
derful as the exterior. More than five 
hundred valuable columns of precious 
substances are in and about St. Mark's ; 
and forty-six thousand square feet of 
beautiful mosaic, much of it executed in 
the eleventh century, cover its floors, 
walls, and ceiling/' I would like to tell 
you more of this wonderful cathedral ; 
it is so beautiful. Every one has heard 
of the pigeons of St. Mark's that 
swarm in this square and have been 
fed by the city for seven hundred 
years. " Our Henry " had a good time 
feeding the pigeons, and so had the 
pigeons in being fed ; but they were in 
i95 



A Sunshine Trip 

great danger of being killed with kind- 
ness at his hands ; he never tired feed- 
ing them. I do not like to stop writing 
of the weird old city. I did not go 
again to the palace of the Doges, or 
over the Bridge of Sighs, or down 
through the dreadful dungeons that I 
was so determined to explore a few 
months before, but I left Venice saying, 
as I think every one says, " Farewell, 
beautiful Venice ! " 

We left Florence yesterday at two 
o'clock and travelled by an express 
train until eleven o'clock last night to 
reach Venice. This morning for the 
first time I felt like calling a halt ; as 
you remember, I was in Venice last 
summer. I said to our party, unless I 
can in some way be a help this morn- 
ing, I wish you would go without me ; 
for not only was I tired, but I wanted 
196 



Venice 



to be left with my Bible and pen and 
paper. So here I am in one of the 
grandest hotels I was ever in. Our 
private parlor overlooks the Grand 
Canal ; the golden room is flooded with 
golden sunshine, and I am resting as I 
could not even on a gondola. 

Of course this afternoon I will pay 
my respects to St. Mark's and the aris- 
tocratic pigeons, etc. I see that by 
having this quiet hour I can catch up 
the thread that I laid down in Rome. 

I was sorry that I could not accept 
Mrs. Clark's invitation (wife of the 
President of our Theological Seminary 
in Rome and daughter of Dr. Butts of 
Drew Theological), who kindly offered 
to take me to the other side of the Tiber 
to see what I could in so short a time 
of the work of our Woman's Foreign 
Missionary Society. But in returning 
i97 



A Sunshine 'Trip 

Mrs. Clark's call on me, I had to tell 
her all our arrangements had been al- 
tered, for it had been found out that in 
order to be in Switzerland at Interlaken 
on Easter, we should have to leave earlier 
than we had anticipated, and so I not 
only missed going with Mrs. Clark, but 
was obliged to go in the afternoon of 
the day on which I was to speak on the 
work of the King's Daughters in our 
American Church. 

I was so disappointed, and so were the 
Daughters who wear our little silver cross, 
but we had to start for Florence. Never 
had the words that I had given to my 
friends before leaving home been put to 
a severer test, — 

"'Tis equal joy to go or stay." 
It is much easier to theorise than to act ; 
but I am glad of the line that precedes 
the above, — 

198 



Venice 

" But with a God to guide our way, 
'Tis equal joy to go or stay." 

The joy will come in either going or 
staying, in recognising our Guide and do- 
ing His will. Some one says, " Travel 
is the fool's paradise." I don't think the 
fools have a paradise at all. It takes a 
wise person to have a paradise, whether 
at home or abroad. I believe the people 
who travel for mere pleasure do not find 
it. You come to know of so much un- 
happiness that people have who are trav- 
elling. Sometimes you are compelled to 
listen to sounds that tell a sad story of 
domestic life, or domestic death. 

During the last moments I spent in my 
room in the Grand Hotel in Rome, the 
smile did not leave my face as I listened 
to a gentleman whistling in the room next 
to mine. He commenced whistling, — 
"I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls." 

n 

199 



A Sunshine Trip 

I smiled as I wondered whether he had 
awakened from his dream. Just then his 
tune changed, and he whistled a tune 
called " Dennis " that I always associate 
with 

"A charge to keep I have, 
A God to glorify, 
A never-dying soul to save, 
And fit it for the sky." 

While I was thinking, " Well, if you 
really get to that, it will not matter 
whether your dream of dwelling in mar- 
ble halls comes true or not/' again the 
tune changed, and the song we heard so 
often on the trip was beautifully whistled 
(" The Palms ") ; and then he started in 
on, 

" O Beulah Land ! Sweet Beulah Land ! 99 

Well, the whole thing was a sermon to 
me ; and to tell the truth I have to catch 
my sermons as best I can on this trip. 

200 



Venice 

So I arranged it all, commencing with 

" Dreaming dreams of a life that is not, 
Of a life that can never be," 

then awakening to see that life must have 
a purpose in it, that we have " a charge 
to keep." Then coming in sight of a 
cross and seeing a life laid down for us, 
and this bringing us sooner or later in 
view of the Delectable Mountains, we 
finally catch a sight of the New Jerusa- 
lem, that will " never pass away." 

" O Beulah Land ! Sweet Beulah Land ! " 

Of course I had prepared myself for 
the disappointment of staying so short a 
time in Florence. It could only be a 
bird's-eye view, seeing a few paintings 
and pieces of sculpture ; but the old fa- 
miliar hymn, " Work, for the night is 
coming," will never be disassociated from 
Michael Angelo's last piece of work, 

201 



A Sunshine Trip 

" Night and Morning/' which I saw in 
Florence. Are we doing work that will 
be worth looking at even if unfinished ? 

The holy Robert McCheyne sealed all 
his letters with a device of the sun going 
down behind the western hills, and over 
it these words, " The night cometh." 



202 



MILAN TO PARIS 



WE left Milan at night, and the next 
morning we were nearing the 
spot where we had expected to take the 
train for Interlaken. But we had decided 
to go right on to Paris. So the sunset on 
the Jungfrau I should not see. But I 
had seen it, and it was " within " me. 
Had I not gazed at the celestial vision, 
and longed for purity, — had it not made 
me hungry more than once, to know what 
the bridal of the soul must be ? So I 
looked at it, as memory brought it before 
me, as we passed the region of the Alps, 
and I had a sort of feeling that "what 
thou hast not now, thou shalt have here- 
after." There is much we must learn to 
wait for, and our lives, I am sure, would 
be much happier if we would wait in 
203 



A Sunshine Trip 

hope. It is only a question of time when 
we shall have all things. " We are heirs of 
all things, and we shall come into our in- 
heritance some day. < There is a deeper 
meaning and greater joy in cc Hope in the 
Lord " than some of us have ever known.^ 
So I passed the Alps in hope. 

We reached Paris on the eve of Easter. 
The beautiful Easter ! I did not grieve 
that we had missed being in Rome on 
Easter. It was impossible to be in Jeru- 
salem, where of course we should have 
been so delighted to be on Easter. Yet 
we had learned that in our dreams we had 
not counted on some facts, for we were in 
Rome on Palm Sunday ; and I noticed 
we had not the same desire to remain 
over Easter that we had had. So on 
Easter Sunday morning in Paris, in the 
quiet of my room, I saw that the lesson 

had gone down deeper, — " The Kingdom 
204 



Milan to Paris 

(the Easter) is within you." One does 
not reach this experience quickly. I was 
told when a child that the sun danced on 
Easter Sunday morning ; so that if it 
rained and the new bonnet could not be 
worn, I had no Easter. Of course that 
was a very early stage, but the later stages 
were foolish too ; but I knew that Sunday 
morning in Paris, that nothing could pre- 
vent me from having an Easter, for He 
had become my Easter, and as the picture 
at the tomb had always taught — it was 
her name uttered by the voice of love, 
and her glad recognition of her Master 
that made the real Easter, for one 
woman : so I had my Easter in Paris, but 
Paris did not make my Easter. I saw on 
that day for the first time the wonderful 
Church of the Madeleine lighted with 
innumerable candles ; and the finest sing- 
ing I ever heard in a church I heard that 
205 



A Sunshine Trip 

afternoon. The effect was wonderful, 
and yet there is a glory that excelleth — 
the inward glory of the Spirit; for the 
music ceases ; the flowers die on the 
altar, but the glory of an inward Christ 
abideth forever. That which will con- 
tinue longest with me, as associated with 
my visit to Paris, was a gift I received, 
which cannot be taken from me. I know 
it was given to Saint Paul in the first place, 
but it was surely given to me on the night 
of Easter day. " My grace is sufficient 
for thee." It was spoken to my inner 
consciousness. I said, " Is it sufficient for 
all my sinful past ? " And the answer 
came — "Sufficient ! " I said, "Is it suffi- 
cient for all my future?" and the answer 
came — " Sufficient ! " Sufficient " grace 
to cover all my sins," and sufficient grace 
with every thorn and for every duty. 
And it was made very clear to me by the 
206 



Milan to Paris 



Spirit that it was His grace that was suffi- 
cient and not mine. I could not depend 
on any grace but His grace ; and that was 
to be given me just to meet every need. 
I was to draw on Him for his grace mo- 
ment by moment. That was enough, 
that was more to me than all the sights 
of earth, — that met my deepest need, and 
that was a preparation for the news which 
came the next day, — that enabled me to 
resign the determination that the ending 
of the trip should find me at Tavistock, 
where I should look at the words: "Oh, 
bliss of the purified " and " Thou shalt 
guide me with thy counsel, and afterwards 
receive me to glory," and where I should 
read again the words cut in the stone, that 
I had heard the voice that is now still 
utter so many times, " The Spirit and the 

Bride say come" But if dear M 

is so ill as the letter says, then I must 
207 



A Sunshine Trip 

return to see her before she sails for old 
England ; and only a few days remain, so 
I shall not see the spot so sacred to me. 
Mrs. Munro is more than willing to 
change from the " Lucania " to the 
"Campania" which will sail in a few days. 
So with only a mere call in London (the 
city so fascinating to me) we sail on the 
" Campania " for New York. We have 
been far from our home. We have 
passed dangers seen and unseen. We 
have enjoyed much, — learned much, and 
we feel sure that while other places may 
fade or grow dim in our memory, the land 
of His birth, — the land where He worked 
and suffered and died, will be an unfading 
memory with us. Disappointed we may 
have been in much of the Holy Land or 
in the absence of what we had expected 
to see, but after all it was the Holy Land, 
and it was the Jerusalem that we hoped, 
208 



Milan to Paris 

with the pious Jews, would yet be the joy 
of earth ; and the echo of the voices of the 
angel who stood by the side of the disci- 
ples we seemed to hear, as we left the 
sacred spot : u This same Jesus which is 
taken up from you unto heaven shall so 
come in like manner as ye have seen Him 
go unto heaven." We left Jerusalem with 
the faith and hope that His feet would 
again stand on the Mount of Olives. 

And yet I keep saying, " Can it be I 
have been in the Jerusalem where He set 
His face to go and suffer?" For "He set 
His face steadfastly towards Jerusalem," 
and after Him the grand Apostle said, " I 
go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, 
not knowing the things that shall befall 
me there, save that bonds and imprison- 
ment await me." Oh, there is a " Jeru- 
salem, the golden," for all those who have 
suffered in this Jerusalem : — 
l 4 209 



A Sunshine Trip 

" These are they who bore the cross ; 
Nobly for their master stood ; 
Sufferers in His righteous cause; 
Followers of their dying God." 

How slow we are to enter into His 
sufferings, not seeing that this is the only 
way to enter into His glory ! We need 
not go to the Holy Land to see the place 
of His suffering. He is being crucified in 
New York ! The bloody sweat is wherever 
the cry of the oppressed is heard, for there 
is still a suffering Christ. Alas, that the 
church should not see more deeply into the 
meaning of all their appeals ! Those who 
love Christ will make the land where they 
have lived and died for ever fragrant with 
their memories. We must come to the 
willingness and the joy of being crucified 
with Christ, or we shall never know the 
power of His resurrection. 



2IO 



ENGLAND — THEN HOME 



WE have stepped on English soil at 
last, the soil so precious to me. 
The ugly channel, as it has been called, 
was as lovely and smooth as the Hudson ; 
no one thought of being ill. On my way 
up to London, the wonderful trip nearly 
over, I went back in thought, as one 
always does, to the one spot, the Holy 
Land. I was glad to think that in all 
the beautiful pictures in our New Testa- 
ment (and now I know the land as well 
as the book) none could be lovelier than 
that one where He stood by a grave ; and 
in that grave was the body of one whom 
Jesus loved. 



A Sunshine Trip 

And if it be true that all the beautiful 
words and truths He uttered are only 
specimens, a little of the ore of the mines 
of truth and love, only think what for- 
tunes are ahead of us ; for with Him it is 
always : cc As it was in the beginning, is 
now, and ever shall be." 

We have to remain here a few hours 
for our steamer, and of course we have 
paid our respects to St. Paul's and beau- 
tiful Westminster. We saw them as the 
sun was setting ; for in London, as every- 
where else, the bright sunshine is with 
us. One is hardly surprised at the 
absence of sunshine in London ; so we 
feel especially grateful that we can have 
even here the memory of its presence. 



THE voyage is ended ! 
I cannot send out this little book 
without thanking the many who prayed 
for a safe journey and a safe return. 
How many prayed that the seas might 
be smooth, and their prayers were an- 
swered ! The Mediterranean will ever 
remain in memory the " Smiling Medi- 
terranean." The stormy Atlantic was 
not the name for the beautiful Atlantic 
we crossed. Did He say in answer to 
so many prayers, " Peace, be still " ? It 
hardly seemed any time after we stepped 
on the " Campania," before we were look- 
ing for the faces that three months before 



A Sunshine Trip 

we strained our eyes to see as we passed 
from the shore, still waving to them when 
they were out of our sight. One who 
threw me a bunch of violets, who reached 
the steamer too late to come on board 
(his eager, happy face I see now as I 
write), has reached the eternal shore. 
With him the storms are all over. Will 
he meet me with fadeless flowers when 
the sea of life is crossed ? I am glad he 
threw me the violets. We shall be glad 
some day for all the flowers we have 
given or received. As I stood on the 
" Campania " as she neared the dock, and 
the faces of my boys became clear to 
me, a strange gentleman standing in 
front of me said, as he stepped back, 
" Take my place, madam ; there is no one 
looking for me." God grant, when the 
voyage of life is over, all the seas, 
whether calm or smooth, crossed, we may 



A Sunshine 'Trip 

be able to say, " Almost Home/' and 
not have to add, " There 's no one looking 
for me." We have now the power to 
make that saying impossible. Love never 
forgets. If we have helped souls to that 
further shore, they will come to see us 
land. 



215 



\ 



\ 



m 



■;;r : ;;' 



1 



'li'lfllHSI 



■ihi 



: 5 ! 




010 174 951 



